Once Upon a Saturday
by one four two nine seven eight
Summary: [chapter 7] .. in which Harry is called unexpectedly to the Headmaster's office, Draco dodges confrontation, and we learn a little bit about Percy Weasley.
1.

.. Morning Song ..  
  
Once upon a Saturday afternoon, Arthur Weasley stood in the dusty hole of a shop that was Ollivanders. The shop never changed, and was today as it had always been since Weasley himself had been in with his parents to buy his very first wand. Mounds of slender boxes were piled around on shelves, the desk, that decrepit old chair which had been there always, sitting patiently in the corner, since Weasley was eleven; a fine layer of dust coated everything in a surreal mist of cobwebs.  
  
"Well, well, Arthur, good to see you again so soon," came a thin voice from behind a stack of boxes. A moment later, the great misty eyes of Oliver Ollivander were peering at Weasley, and an old, spindly gentleman who seemed saturated with dust stepped around the boxes, dressed in moth-eaten red velvet trousers and waistcoat, and a yellowed shirt with ruffles at the throat. "Come to replace your wand? Let's see, yes, ten inches of maple and dragon heartstring, is it?"  
  
He scuttled off to find the box, but Weasley stopped him at once, saying, "No, no, it's not for me." His ears turned quite pink, and Ollivander turned back, his craggy white eyebrows raised into his fly-away white hair.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"It's Molly's birthday - she's tried convincing me we can't afford it, but I know her wand is quite old now, and I thought - "  
  
"Ah, Molly, yes. Holly and unicorn hair, six inches? Of course. She always has had such small hands." Weasley nodded, and Ollivander disappeared from sight in the faint light.  
  
He returned with an especially dusty box in one hand and another box, wooden and polished to reflect the world around it in its wine-colored grain. Weasley took in his breath sharply, and Ollivander smiled proudly as he transferred the wand from the old box to the new.  
  
"Oh, Mr. Ollivander, I couldn't possibly - "  
  
"Nonsense, Arthur, take it. I insist. For a woman such as Molly, presentation is everything." He slipped the beautiful box into a soft black bag.  
  
"How much do I owe you?"  
  
"Six Galleons," replied the old man, busying himself with the great heavy book on his desk. Weasley carefully counted the gold coins in the palm of his hand, closing the money bag tied to his belt securely before dropping the coins into Ollivander's leathery hands.  
  
"I can't begin to thank you, Mr. Ollivander." His wet grey eyes were shining as he took the bag with both hands. "Really."  
  
Ollivander waved a hand. "It's nothing. Tell me, Arthur, how are things at the Ministry?"  
  
At once, Weasley's pleased smile faltered. "We're - holding together." He tucked the bag under his arm and turned to go out. At the door, he paused, and looked back at Ollivander, whose old face was creased with troubled lines. "Between us, sir, be prepared. Something is coming, people are saying. Something quite big," he said darkly, letting the bell on the door tinkle softly on his way out.  
  
  
  
  
  
Florean Fortescue was a tall man with wiry grey hair combed off of his long, wrinkled face. His ever-present smile curled up under a very large, very bushy handlebar mustache that he could wiggle back and forth quite effectively. He had small blue eyes that sparkled, and most days he wore a white vest with thick red stripes running vertically down the front.  
  
As a young man, Fortescue had studied at a small wizarding school in the States. He was fascinated by the witch burnings of the medieval times, and knew a great deal about them; he believed some of the present work of dark witches and wizards a result of a long-held grudge toward those ignorant Muggles of old. He had also studied in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, though he loved to travel and had been to even the most neglected corners of the world.  
  
Fortescue was also very fond of children, and because of this, he tended to cheerfully dole out free ice cream to any child sitting by him or herself in his parlor.  
  
The ice cream parlor itself was a clean, white building next to Flourish and Blotts in the Alley, with a pretty terrace in front with half a dozen small tables under large red-and-white striped umbrellas.  
  
On Saturday, he was standing at the door of the parlor, watching a family with several small children fondly, when he noticed an older boy walking alone down the street. His hands were empty and shoved deeply into the pockets of his jeans, emerging only to push is glasses up the bridge of his nose every so often.  
  
"Harry! Good afternoon," called Fortescue happily, and the boy looked up in surprise.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Fortescue. How's business?"  
  
So polite, thought the old man. He smiled broadly under his mustache. "Fine, fine, my boy. Say, how would you like an ice cream? We've a new flavor in just for the day, it's called Berry Bramble Boomer, very popular among all the kids your age. Your friends all stopped in this morning for a scoop ."  
  
"No, thank you, Mr. Fortescue." Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a crease between his eyebrows and a frown dipping his face slightly. "I'll be eating with the Weasleys in just a little while."  
  
"Good, good; but that's too bad, son, the ice cream's a treat. Tell you what, Harry, you can come back later and I'll save you a bowl. How does that sound?"  
  
The boy's smile did not reach his eyes. "That would be very nice of you, sir. Thank you."  
  
"Are you shopping for school supplies today?"  
  
"Yes, with Siri - with my godfather. He went on ahead to the bookstore while I stopped in at Gringotts for spending money." Harry glanced at his watch, then looked back at Fortescue. "I've got to get going, actually, but thank you for the ice cream. I'll come back after I've eaten."  
  
"Oh, yes, of course. Stop by whenever you can make it," Fortescue beamed. "It's always nice to see you, Harry. You're welcome any time, any time at all."  
  
"Good-bye, Mr. Fortescue."  
  
"Good-bye, Harry, and take care of yourself."  
  
"I will."  
  
Fortescue watched the boy make his way back out to the street and disappear amid the plethora of other shoppers milling about. He shook his head; today Harry had seemed more sullen and quiet than usual, much less cheerful.  
  
Perhaps, the old man thought, we should all pay more attention to the boy, and much less to Harry Potter.  
  
  
  
  
  
When Neville Longbottom was a small boy, he loved to come to Diagon Alley with his Gran and sit at her feet in the tiny bakery facing Eeyelops Owl Emporium as she ordered her bread for the week. She and the owner of the tiny shop were old friends, schoolmates from times long past.  
  
Now the kind old shopkeeper had retired, and his son ran the shop. The son was a ruddy-cheeked young man with a curly mop of blond hair that fell over his face and warm brown eyes, and when Neville and his Gran came in, he would offer them cups of tea and warm muffins or cookies. He asked Neville how school was, and they would talk for a bit while the man wrapped the chosen bread and pastries for them. Sometimes he put an extra treacle tart into the bag for Neville, but more often he would bring up a warm pumpkin pasty, or a fresh doughnut glazed with a fine sugar frost.  
  
Today Neville's Gran left him to be fitted for new school robes in Madam Malkin's comfortable shop while she retrieved the baked goods. As he stood on the little stool, his robes being pinned to the correct length, he watched shoppers through the window as they walked from shop to shop together, laughing and talking amiably.  
  
There was a young girl trailing a toy hippogriff behind her as she held her mother's hand; a pair of elderly witches strolled past, their arms laden with bags from this store or that; a young man pulling a large hooded cage on a trolley beside him; a girl roughly his own age, whose hair was plentiful and bushy brown, holding hands with a tall boy with red hair and a freckled face, Hermione and Ron out for the afternoon. The rest of the Weasleys were probably somewhere nearby, in the bookshop or goggling at the new broom in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies.  
  
He absently wondered why Harry wasn't with them, but was distracted when one of Madam Malkin's magicked pins stuck him sharply in the ankle.  
  
  
  
  
  
For the first time in ten years, Bill Weasley cut his hair. It was now clipped neatly below his ears, and he wore it off his face in a tangle of red curls.  
  
Molly Weasley was thrilled. She hovered over him like a shadow, admiring the new length and asking if he wouldn't perhaps consider cutting it even shorter, like Percy's, dear?  
  
"No, Mum," he insisted, shooing her away with one large, freckled hand. "It's too short as it is, I think, and believe me when I say that I'll not cut it again!"  
  
He already regretted cutting his lovely long curls, and it had only been a handful of days; but he had done it for Dahl, who convinced him that shorter hair was by far sexier than a ratty long ponytail.  
  
After all, Bill reasoned unhappily, once he and Dahl broke up (and he was sure that, yes, one day, they would break up), he would be not only without a boyfriend but also without his beloved hair. So why had he agreed to it in the first place? Ah, yes, Dahl's infamous power of . persuasion. Of course.  
  
Dahl was small and American, with sharp dark eyes and short, glossy black hair. They shared a flat in wizarding Cairo, several blocks from the tiny café where Dahl waited tables. The café was also quite close to Gringotts, the towering sand-colored stone building looking as though it had been made with the pyramids (it probably had, Bill often reminded himself), where Bill worked.  
  
Bill liked Dahl because he was small, because he often said the things everyone in a given room was thinking but no one said, and because he was soft and warm between the cool sheets in the dead of night. Dahl said he liked Bill because he was tall and British, because he was quiet, and because he made the best ham-cheese-and-mushroom omelets south of Amsterdam.  
  
For two weeks Bill was on holiday and visiting his parents in Britain, in the ramshackle little house outside of Ottery St. Catchpole where he had grown up. His mother had fixed up his old bedroom, and he slept there. He found himself Apparating every few days to spend time with Dahl at night, when the oppressiveness of the night grew to be too heavy to bear in a bed by himself.  
  
Presently he sprawled in a chair in a tiny café not unlike Dahl's in Cairo, cradling a cup of hot coffee between his long fingers. Somewhere, a clock announced the hour in high, brassy tones, and he sighed into his coffee steam.  
  
His mum would be expecting him at the Leaky Cauldron soon, where the family was eating with Harry Potter and Ron's girlfriend. He should have been able to remember her name, but it had been years since he had last seen any of Ron's classmates, let alone one specific girl he happened to fancy.  
  
As Bill gulped the last of his coffee and shrugged into his jacket, he looked around the little café carelessly, his grey eyes trailing over old lady couples stirring at their tea, balding men playing chess alone, young witches and wizards like himself who drank their coffee alone and shut the rest of the place out of their mind. Nothing very remarkable for a little café such as this.  
  
There was one table far off in a corner, however, which caught his eye. With his back to Bill, a well-groomed man with a poker-straight back was conversing heatedly, though in very low tones, with what must have been his son, the pair looked so alike. The father figure seemed vaguely familiar to Bill, but he couldn't name that pale and pointed face.  
  
He dropped several coins onto his table and left.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Sugar for your tea, Harry?"  
  
Harry blinked down the table at Molly Weasley, who was holding out the yellow sugar bowl toward him with a blankly cheerful expression in her warm eyes. It took him a moment to force a smile to his chapped lips, saying, "No, thank you, Mrs Weasley."  
  
They had been brought their supper, vegetable soup with rich broth and tender hunks of meat, in a tarnished old pot, fresh loaves of bread on thick slabs of some unrecognizable grey stone, and iced tea in wooden goblets carved with little owls and cats and brooms. It smelled delicious, but Harry's appetite was somewhat lacking for some nagging reason he could not place.  
  
"How was everyone's day?" asked Arthur, a twitchy smile pinned beneath his nose. There was an unenthused collective murmur among those seated at the long wooden table in a corner of the Leaky Cauldron, but Arthur seemed satisfied with this.  
  
At one end, Bill dipped his spoon idly into his soup again and again, paying little heed to the excited chatter between the twins around him; Percy polished his glasses in between spoonfuls, scowling as he did at the "absolute grime of this place" compared to his sterile flat in London, into which he had moved the previous spring. Arthur twitched through meal, pausing now and again to look around at everyone with that careful smile in place.  
  
The other end of the table was host to Molly, who was caught up in tales of Ron and Hermione's afternoon in the Alley (including a detailed account of their encounter with Draco Malfoy, who had been studying the newest racing broom in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies until they came in), and Ginny, who sat up very straight and ate very little as she asked Harry to pass this or that to her, seeming quite thrilled when he did without a word.  
  
And somewhere in between, Charlie devoured bowl after bowl of the steaming soup, a bright pink new burn stretching from his knuckle to well beyond his wrist on one arm, occasionally looking up to nudge Percy and say, "Steady on, there, Perce, if you keep that up, you'll wipe away the very lenses on those things," and start in on his fourth bowl of soup or sevent hunk of delicious thick white bread. And Harry, sitting on the rough bench between George and Ron, listened quietly to Ron's excited monologue, spattered with corrections from Hermione across the table.  
  
".You should have seen the look on his face, it was priceless. Say, Harry, it reminded me of the time I got Malfoy outside of the Great Hall after breakfast that day, the day it was raining?" Ron's cheeks where pink with excitement as he spoke, his eyes like chips of sunlight as the candle flames reflected in their wet depths. "I told him off that day, it's a shame you weren't there then, either."  
  
"I was there," said Harry, a crease appearing in his brow. "I told him he was bound to go to hell, and - "  
  
"Oh, but it was great," babbled Ron, looking at Hermione with a simpering and dazed expression. "Hey, remember when."  
  
Harry sighed into his half-eaten bowl of soup. In a moment of sudden self- conciousness, he pressed a hand to his stomach below the table. He had lost a lot of weight this summer, he realized, for one reason or the next. Between completing his Dursley-given chores, studying late into the night, and practicing Quidditch alone in the park just before the sun rose, he often forgot to eat, or chose not to for an extra twenty minutes on his broom. Surely if he took off his shirt he would be able to easily count every rib he had, and fully clothed he knew his face appeared gaunt and hollow. Not that any of the Weasleys would have noticed, of course, but Harry had.  
  
He was glad the fall term would soon be starting, and he would be back in the castle before he knew it. It was difficult for him to sleep without the heavy shadow of the canopy above his bed, its long curtains draping around him in a safe tent of red velvet and gold ribbon along the bottom. At the Dursleys, he could ignore the lack of curtains, facing the wall instead; but in Ron's bedroom, the tangerine explosion of wallpaper was an eyesore, much too bright even in the darkest of nights. He missed the throb of noises at meals, and the dry, antique smell of the place, as though the morter between each brick was rotting away into nothing under his very nostrils.  
  
"Boy, Malfoy won't be able to live this one down ."  
  
He even missed Malfoy, and the thrills of animosity which ran between them at every meeting. He missed the constant sparring, the wordplay and bickering they shared. He certainly missed the hours of detention made worthwhile because he, Harry Potter, had won the battle that day.  
  
Harry felt suddenly very ill, and asked to be excused.  
  
  
  
  
  
Late that night, in his bedroom in the Malfoy's summer house, Lucius Draco Malfoy IV lay across the width of his enormous bed, his pale feet flat on the cold marble floor. His eyes were closed, his fringe ruffled by a breeze wafting through the pair of glass doors across the room, which stood open in the moonlight. His shirt, a pristine white confection with pearl buttons and scads of ruffles down the front, was unbuttoned, its tails untucked and wrinkled on the silken green spread. As he breathed, the length of his milk- white torso heaved lightly, his nipples a strangely pink contrast to all the white surrounding them.  
  
Farther up on the bed, beneath the summer-weight spread, lay a nameless youth with a quite unremarkable face dusted with pale freckles, naked as the day he was born and his face in the shadows, turned away from the doors and their pirouetting gauzy curtains. Draco had chosen him from all the rest of the guests, whose names he had not bothered to remember, because of his curls, sweetly brown ringlets hanging over his eyes, quite unruly. He had chosen him, this little cherub whose cheeks were still round with youth, whose eyes had not yet beheld the cruelness of this world or any other, because he knew the child could not have turned him down. Sticky, sweaty palms of hands, a blank and nervous smile; pink flesh beneath it all, waiting for Draco's lips.  
  
Draco forever enjoyed the parties his mother put on for him, for beyond the traditional list of simpering Slytherins in his own year, his father sent out gilded invitations to every beautifully sculpted young pureblood witch and wizard of reputable age he could find, from handfuls of countries across Europe, and several from the States, as well; and from these pretty little things, Draco could take his pick. Years ago, he had chosen a girl his own age, whose blushing pink complexion and pretty yellow hair tied up in ribbons made her look much younger than she was, and the year before last it had been a thin Slovakian child with round blue eyes and dark hair.  
  
Last year, he had surprised his father and taken a Scandanavian chap nearly twice his age, tall and blond and lithe. Lucius had been expecting him to choose a fellow he had invited in particular, a boy Draco's age, because he was from a family just as powerful and perhaps just as feared as Lucius' own. And also because he was pretty, with red hair pulled up in curls behind his ears, dazzling eyes so blue they seemed violet in most lights, and a delicious, contemptuously mean look smeared beneath his brow. Especially candlelight, it seemed, the boy was pretty, and Lucius had requested the house-elves fix candles around in every room.  
  
Draco thought about this as he lay across his bed, listening to the boy at the other end of the mattress draw breath into his lungs and exhale again, wondering if this child from Burmingham would ever amount to anything as substantial as being heir to the Malfoy fortunes. He sat up, his shirt slipping over his flesh like silk, though it was not, and pooling at his waist; he looked at the boy, whose curls fell across his face in a strangely tragic mask of light and shadow, and he wondered very carefully why this of all creatures downstairs had caught his eye.  
  
He allowed himself to steal toward the boy on the silken spread, melting into the moonlight from the high windows and open doors, one hand spreading flat before the next, retracting and clawing forward before spreading flat again, again, again. It struck him just how large his bed truly was.  
  
Innocence, he decided, holding himself delicately over the sleeping cherub. Bone structure, birdlike, within such softly infantile skin - an unobtrusive nose, but masculine and striking. This light, pliable frame, which Draco had surely seen somewhere before and admired from afar, though now he could not place it. The hair, the unruly curls, which were still unmarred and fine, a trait Draco admired and still posessed himself; but the importance was the untidy sprawl of every last ring in the halo -  
  
The boy was awake. His eyes had opened slowly, lethargicly, blinking with fatigue and confusion. Wet, green, fringed with dark lashes any girl would envy.  
  
"Oh, but your eyes, cherub." Draco sighed, his pallid eyelids fluttering as he blanketed himself over the child, whose precious damp lips pressed hotly against Draco's high cheekbones, the corner of Draco's mouth.  
  
And Draco, slipping into the tingling, dizzy heat of his arousal, forgot about those velvet eyes which had so vehemently reminded him.  
  
[from my computer to yours, with love] . 


	2. 

.. Favorable Encounters ..  
  
Draco, dressed in a pair of soft, tailored grey pants and a red silk shirt with wide lapels, would usually have made a game of walking to breakfast this morning, slipping silently in his warm, quiet socks over the slick marble floors, trying to sneak up behind this house-elf, or that painting; but today, as the golden morning sunlight smiled down upon his corn silk hair, illuminating his luminous pale blue eyes, he strolled past the sweeping banks of windows with an uncharacteristic cheer and spring in his step.  
  
As he passed his father's study, Draco was hailed inside by Lucius, who was reclining in his great winged leather armchair. Behind his magnificently polished desk and the powerful bookshelves on either side of him, Lucius made quite a picture, his shining blond hair clipped short, like a Roman soldier in the days of Augustus, pale eyes glinting proudly down at Draco, who leaned casually against the wide frame of the study door.  
  
"I see you're in a decent mood, boy," he said, not unkindly. "Have a go with the Thomas boy, eh? Well, perhaps you could have done better." He looked Draco up and down appraisingly, his thin lip jutting out just so as he did. "The silk was a good choice today, Draco, very flattering to our complexion and build."  
  
"Yes, indeed," said Draco, holding out an arm for his own benefit, studying the watery creases in the delicately cold fabric. "Is my mother down for breakfast?"  
  
Lucius began to busy himself with paperwork on his desk, appearing for a moment as though he had decided to ignore Draco's question; but he hadn't, and he said, "I haven't the slightest. I've been in here, you see, since the sun rose - and she's had a bit of a lie-in. See for yourself, if you would.You've got two legs, haven't you?"  
  
"Yes, Father, indeed I have. And look, both are the same length, as well, clad in a pair of fine trousers provided by your healthy paycheck."  
  
"Hold your tongue; you're a borderline blasphemer." Lucius looked down his nose at his son and spoke quietly. "If there was one thing the Dark Lord prided himself on, it what providing for his most loyal." He seemed immediately rushed, distracted. "Now, please, get yourself out of my study. There is work to be done, and I haven't time to carry on with you all morning."  
  
Draco rolled away from the door languidly, like some sort of primal cat whose velvet skin is stretched over miles of sinew and taut muscle. He buried his hands in the pockets of his soft trousers, shaking his fringe away from his eyes, and dawdled toward the grand front staircase of the Manor, an elegant structure with a sturdy marble banister curling around with the wall until it met the floor below. Fixed steadily to the rotunda ceiling above, a chandelier peered down at the entry like some omniscient eye made of silver and fire and glass.  
  
Draco loved the Manor. He loved the wealth and splendor which surrounded him on every side, above and below, drowning him in a flurry of marble and silver and silk. He loved its rich solitude, the priceless paintings which did not move for their old, old age, like some ancient stone vampire from one of his Anne Rice novels, which were cleverly hidden away from his parents' knowledge in the false floor of his closet. He loved the scurry of little house-elves' feet as they scrambled to stay out of sight, just a little noise in the grand silence of the Manor, which Draco loved.  
  
He stopped short at the foot of the stairs, his pale eyes narrowing severely at the trunks which stood in a corner of the entry. His school trunks, freshly washed and polished, packed and waiting for the day when Draco would order some house-elf to hoist them onto the train. The trunks seemed to be watching him in the echoing silence, and Draco shrank away from them, fearful that they should leap forward at once and maul him like a wild beast from Hagrid's dreadful, unpredictable lessons.  
  
And then it leapt into the foreground of his memory; he would be returning to Hogwarts soon, return to the monotony of classes and the same miserable, simpering Slytherins with whom he had spent the past six years, and he would be dreadfully bored with the professors and homework and that wretched smell of rotting tea and frigid shades of witches who once had been.  
  
Draco sighed, and forced himself to resume his jaunty stroll on his way into the breakfast room, where he brooded moodily into a steaming plate of egg yolks and sausages and toast.  
  
  
  
Sirius burned the eggs that morning. Harry woke with the smell of charred yolks in his nose, the thick smoke from his godfather's culinary disaster hanging in curtains through the room. Harry pushed his hair from his forehead, and he sighed.  
  
Bumping into the dresser at the foot of his bed, Harry somehow managed to stumble into the hall of the tiny flat he and Sirius shared above a Muggle bakery in London near the Leaky Cauldron. His godfather was franticly waving a soiled dishtowel to clear the air around the sink, into which the smoking frying pan had been abandoned; the window had been open, and through this narrow opening he was trying to coax the stained air, flapping this little strip of terrycloth at it with all the enthusiasm he could muster.  
  
"Oi, Sirius, what the hell do you think you're doing?" yelped Harry, seizing the cloth and casting it aside. From the counter, he grabbed an empty pickle jar, into which he poured much water before dumping the entire thing onto the pan in the sink; a tiny flame had started there, adding to the suffocating smell and horrid thick smoke.  
  
"I was just trying to get you some decent breakfast before you leave for the castle this morning." He looked at Harry with soft brown eyes, the innocence of which offset his creased, unshaven features. He defended himself defiantly, "Anyway, I don't see you jumping at the chance to eat something yourself, and you're the one who needs to eat around here!"  
  
"Indeed," muttered Harry darkly, shrugging the wide collar of Dudley's old t-shirt back onto his shoulder.  
  
Eventually, the kitchen cleared out, and, using a fresh pan from the cupboard, scrambled several eggs with a bit of cheese and ham leftover from the supper they had shared with Mundungus Fletcher, an old friend of Sirius'.  
  
The breakfast was quite delicious - Harry had picked up a knack for cooking while living with the Dursleys, who had always made him fix their breakfast for them - but also quite unremarkable in its silence.  
  
When Harry got up from the little table to take his plate to the sink, Sirius said, "Best get dressed now, son. We'll need to get down to the station before noon if you're to catch your train."  
  
"Alright."  
  
"Are you meeting Ron at the station this year?"  
  
"No," said Harry in a tight, clipped voice. "Why would I be?"  
  
Sirius eyed him curiously as Harry ran water over the dishes in the sink, his mug of coffee raised halfway to his lips. "You've been best friends with Weasley for the past seven years. You've always met the whole family at the station." Harry's lips were pursed, thin and grimly white. "What's happened? Had a row with Ron?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh.I see. Well, in any case.you should get into some clothes and make sure you're all packed for the term, eh?"  
  
Harry mumbled something unintelligible and stalked through the flat to his bedroom. As Sirius finished his coffee, he sighed.  
  
"James, I've been trying." He looked down the corridor to the closed door that was Harry's. "I just don't want to disappoint you."  
  
  
  
  
  
"There he is!" Ginny's shrill shout rattled Hermione's nerves as the younger girl leapt from her seat on her ratty-edged trunks. Ginny pointed excitedly as Hermione's dark eyes swept the crowded, noisy platform nervously. Beside them, Ron was leaning against the sturdy brick wall, picking through a box of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"There, there!" cried Ginny, stifling her urge to point suddenly and jamming her small hands into the pockets of her thin cotton jumper. "He's right there; can't you see him?"  
  
"Where?" Hermione's heart began to pump faster, franticly, desperately, as she strained to pierce the crowd with her determined gaze. "Where, Ginny? I don't see him!"  
  
"He's right in front of you!" she squealed, collapsing back onto her trunk as the crowds parted. There, dressed in his school trousers and a clean white shirt, was Harry, looking coolly about him as he pushed a cart through the throng of wizards and their parents.  
  
"Harry!" called Ron, finally looking up. "Oi, Harry - over here, mate, come on!"  
  
Harry seemed to pause for just a moment, looking from Ron to Hermione and finally to little Ginny, who sat twitching on her trunks, wringing her hands desperately; and then he smiled, pushing forward past a group of third years and their trunks.  
  
"What's taken you so long?" asked Hermione, grasping at his shirt sleeve desperately. "Why didn't you meet us at the station?"  
  
"Didn't you get our owls?"  
  
"Yes," said Harry, "Of course I did - but - I - Sirius, that is - "  
  
"Oh, never mind," broke in Hermione, smiling anxiously. "It doesn't matter, really, does it?"  
  
"Of course not," said Ron, his Every Flavor Beans forgotten on the end of his upturned trunk. "What matters is that we're off to our seventh year - we rule the castle this year! We can do anything."  
  
"We've already done everything," chided Hermione. Harry smiled, and she poked a threatening finger under his nose. "Don't even think about getting any foolish ideas this year, Harry - I refuse to allow any more damage to be done to my permanent record!"  
  
"Whatever you say, Hermione," said Harry, who was winked at by Ron as the two shared a conspiritually wicked grin.  
  
"Great. Just as soon as I think the mischief's left with the twins, you two grin like that and worry me just as much, if not more. May you receive Howlers for all your rotten efforts!"  
  
"Oh, come on, then," said Ron, taking her hand. "Whatever adventures we've got in mind will have nothing to do with you, alright?"  
  
"What?" said Hermione, mock horror shining in her eyes. "And let you boys have all the fun?" She grinned. "Not on your life."  
  
  
  
  
  
The train seemed to Draco much more worn now than it had in the past, less grand and special. The seats seemed to have faded marginally, the flooring just enough more scuffed to notice the difference, and from all around him, the voices of the other students seemed to be closer in his ear.  
  
And there, through the finger-printed window, Harry Potter seemed happier than he had ever been coming onto the platform with his cart of luggage. Draco watched with narrowed eyes as Potter was greeted boisterously by Weasley and the Mudblood, as Weasley clapped him on the back and the Mudblood, Granger, rose on tiptoe to plant a chaste kiss on Potter's cheek. Potter, ever the noble hero, blushed pink and hugged her close, one of his thin, powerful arms wrapped close around her waist.  
  
Yet - Potter seemed tragically unhappy, as well; Draco could see it in the way he responded to them. When Weasley clapped him again on the back, there, the light in Potter's eyes flickered. Granger's slender hand flattened on Potter's chest, tickling slightly the way a girl's are apt to tease a boy, and Potter shied away just so. Was this the manner in which the Golden Boy of Hogwarts had always responded to his best friends? Draco wasn't sure.  
  
He looked back out the window, eyeing Potter with malevolence, when he caught sight of a young boy who must have been a first year, with he scrambling gait and wide, fearful brown eyes.  
  
The child was small and light of frame, his skin pale and creamy white, his eyes long-lashed and deeply golden brown. His hair was honey-brown in color; or rather, parts of it were. The thick shock of it seemed laced with threads of red and brown and gold, paler in some parts than in others, yet all over lovely and soft-looking. His hands, clasped around the handle of his shiny new trunk, were small and dexterous, fingering the fine leather nervously as he looked around the platform for a friendly face. There was none, and he pressed on, drowning out of sight into the swell of jabbering students.  
  
Draco shook himself as is from a trance. The boy had been beautiful, even more so than the redhead his father had attempted to couple him with at his start-of-term party at the Manor; but in an entirely different, newly intriguing sort of way.  
  
Draco wanted him, he decided, and he closed his eyes, allowing the image of the boy to melt into his eyelids.  
  
  
  
  
  
William Fitz was a small boy, painfully thin and pale, who had thick yellow- blond hair and a small mouth. He was eleven years old, had no brothers or sisters, and lived with his parents, both of whom were Muggles, and his dog, Arnold, who was a cocker spaniel with red, curly fur.  
  
William Fitz was presently trapped in his seat in the corner of a compartment, the very thick wand of a very thick boy pointed straight at his very small nose, the grunting laughter of another thick boy, this one with a face like a gorilla's, suffocating his rational thought process.  
  
"Well, what in the name of the Dark Lord do you clods of soddy earth think you're doing?" The voice materialized from somewhere on the other side of these mountainous boys; it was thin, pale, and sharp with authority, and at once William's tormentors seemed to forget about the very small boy cowering into the corner of the seat.  
  
"We were only fooling," said the thick boy closest to William, still pointing his wand dangerously close to William's nose.  
  
"Yeah," said the gorilla-faced one, "and we were just about to let him go, too."  
  
"I'm sure." The thick boys moved aside suddenly, and William found himself looking into the pale eyes of a thin boy wearing rich robes and a small silver badge which said 'Prefect' in perfect, glistering letters. His hair shone in the light which fell at a slant through the window, and his eyes seemed so unnaturally pale that they were almost transparent. This pale and perfect boy studied William for a moment, his thin lip curled up slightly in a mean sneer, the rest of his face impassive.  
  
Then he said, "Goyle, give me your wand." The thick boy obeyed readily, though his gaze darkened dully. The wand was slipped into the pale boy's robes, disappearing delicately into the sweeping folds of fabric. "Now, both of you, get out of here." The thick boys paused; his gaze narrowed and he said in a most dangerously soft tone of voice, "Before I have to do something I might not regret later in the afternoon."  
  
William Fitz nearly wet himself with relief as the thick boys clumbered out of his compartment, arguing between themselves in low, rumbling mumbles.  
  
The pale boy looked at William with an amused, carefully guarded expression. "Don't expect another favor like that of me again. It won't bloody likely happen," he said, and he followed the thick boys out of the compartment.  
  
  
  
  
  
"The children," said Professor McGonagall, "will be arriving shortly, Albus." She set her round teacup in its round saucer, and set both of these on the round, glass-topped table in the headmaster's round office.  
  
"Back for another year," Albus replied softly, merrily, sipping his own tea contently in the dusty silence of the room.  
  
McGonagall regarded him with a sad little smile. "What will you tell them?"  
  
"Well," he said, putting down his cup and saucer, "I suppose I will tell them what I would expect you to tell them, Minerva, and what they deserve to know." She raised a withered eyebrow, and he smiled knowingly. "The truth, Minerva. They may be young, yes, and perhaps not as knowledgeable about such things as they will be one day, but they are indeed deserving of knowing the truth."  
  
"They won't be happy about this, you know."  
  
Albus reached over the arm of his overstuffed armchair and took her hand gently. "Neither are you, but soon you - and the students, of course - will discover that something like this does not mark the end of the world." His pale eyes glittered with a sheen of excitement, contentment, and melancholy. "It marks only another beginning."  
  
  
  
  
  
The castle loomed, large and foreboding, over the lake as the gentle rolling waters glistened in the thin veil of moonlight. The moon itself, just a thin slice of quicksilver suspended in the sky, was covered in part by a barely visible cobweb of watery cloud, and beyond it, stars winked and twinkled on their velvet backdrop of shadowy night sky.  
  
As the students trudged over the still soft, warm lawns, swaddled in the secure cloak of evening grey, staring down at their feet as they made their way toward the open, welcoming front doors of the ancient stone building, Harry Potter stopped walking quite suddenly. He gazed up in unfaltering awe of the place, so beautiful in its stillness, and breathed in the thick, sultry August air, feeling the moisture collect on his skin as a light breeze yawned over him. His heart swelled, content and he pressed onward with his fellow students toward the pillar of hope that was Hogwarts, thinking but one thought as he did so.  
  
Harry Potter was home.  
  
  
  
[this will, eventually, have a plot, as I've promised before. I just love keeping y'all in suspense. Teehee.] .. 


	3. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------  
  
III., in which we see another side of Draco, attend the start-of-term feast, and learn what truly frightens Harry.  
  
Sometimes, Draco liked to dress in leather. Real leather, this was, not the cheap Muggle excuse for it, made from the hide of an innocent, unobtrusive bovine with large, round eyes and a glossy, dumb stare. No, this leather was expensive, hundreds of Galleons, made from only the finest stock of dragon in existence.  
  
When the world seemed to grind down on him, he would take out the false bottom of his trunk, and there, folded neatly beside his favorite Muggle novels and a dusty box of old photographs, lay the shining black pants, the heavy, silver-studded jacket, and the slim-fitting sleeveless shirt styled with large, slick silver buckles. These, paired with his usual boots, enormous and thick-soled confections which reached nearly to his knees with zippers, buckles, and studs, turned Draco into another wizard altogether.  
  
He would steal away from the common room to wear them, tuck them into his robes and disappear up the tiny back stairways which no one seemed to use or even remember at all, they were so cluttered with shadows and cobwebs and memories. Names were carved here, symbols and dates.  
  
Draco used to look for the names of his father's contemporaries, his professors, and his rivals. His pale fingers would brush over the crumbling brickwork, come away dusty with the past; he would sweep away the thick grey veils of cob webbing and listen impassively as spiders scuttled away from this disturbance. He found the Lestranges names, here, and even the fancy letters spelling Severus Snape.  
  
But when he found small letters carved into the moldering base of the stairs, letters which read J.H. Potter & L.D. Malfoy, 'til death do us part,' Draco stopped looking.  
  
  
  
  
  
Draco was not at the start-of-term feast that year.  
  
Harry knew this because the Great Hall seemed unnaturally empty without Malfoy's silvery preditorial gaze fixed sternly on him, Harry, through the entire meal. On either side of him, Ron and Seamus laughed and smattered their pumpkin juice on the table and on themselves as they carried on, waving forkfuls of steaming food to illustrate this point or that.  
  
Now, because most of the conversation centered around this year's promising Quidditch team, one of them would interrupt the other to interject a question which Harry was expected to answer.  
  
And Harry answered their mindless questions, questions to which they should have known the answer, yet somehow didn't; they didn't notice the dull pain in his voice, nor did they notice that he wasn't eating.  
  
In fact, the smell of the meat in its thick, delicious gravy sickened him, not because he dislike beef, but because it reminded him of the Burrow, a place he could not envision himself visiting again any time in the foreseeable future.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ginny watched Harry eat.  
  
Or, rather, she watched him not eat.  
  
He would spear a bit of meat onto the tines of his fork, swirl it through the gravy on his plate, and look at it; he would make as though he was going to eat it, this succulent bite of tender, juicy beef dripping in its rich bath of gravy. Then Seamus, all flustered by this rambunctious talk of Quidditch, would push his sandy curls away from his dark eyes and knock into Harry's elbow, pawing at him, and ask a question. Harry would answer, lowering his fork to his plate.  
  
Ginny, from behind her glass chalice of juice, pretended she did not see any of this, that it wasn't happening; she pretended that, no, Harry was eating just as much as any of her brothers, that she couldn't see the gauntness of his already thin face. She pretended he was the Harry she had known years ago, when he swallowed mashed potatoes at such an inhuman rate that the entire length of the table would stop and stare, amazed that he didn't choke on his own tongue.  
  
But she could not let herself pretend that she hadn't seen that wounded look in his eye, that flicker of curious injury and self-loathing that she saw so often throughout the meal.  
  
Ginny wondered where the Harry she had fallen so desperately for in her first year had gone, and she felt the last few drops of the sweet, tangy pumpkin juice slip down her throat.  
  
  
  
  
  
The crowds at the school that year seemed stifling to Harry. In walking with his fellow Gryffindors up to the common room, he found himself surrounded by a frightful amount of noise; he felt panicked, pushed into himself by the raucous laughter and shouts of his housemates. His through tightened, his skin damp and clammy, as he gasped shallow breaths of air.  
  
Neither Ron, who was laughing with Seamus at his own jokes, nor Hermione, who was glued to Ron's side, noticed in the least, but Harry could feel the cautious and watchful eyes of some smallish person never leaving his emaciated figure. When he looked around, however, guarding his puzzle, searching gaze carefully, he found that he was no longer being watched; the eyes had left his gaunt frame, and he was again alone in the swirling throng of Gryffindors crowding their way through the corridors to the common room.  
  
The common room itself, of course, was exactly as Harry had remembered it, slightly cluttered in a familiar, comfortable sort of way. The fires had already been lit in their dusty old grates, and the red and gold banners sporting delicately embroidered and fierce looking griffins fluttered from the heavy wooden rafters above.  
  
Harry, ignored by most of his house, collapsed into a threadbare red armchair in the corner of the room with a heaving sigh, struggling to keep the rough stone walls from spinning around him.  
  
By the fire, Ron had settled down with Hermione leaning on one of his crooked knees, challenging person after person to a game of chess and winning every time.  
  
Harry found it terribly cruel and ironic that a boy who had everything which Harry had always wanted, a boy who had envied the little that Harry actually had, was now in fact more popular than Harry himself was. Ron was also Quidditch captain of the Gryffindor house team, as well as Head Boy.  
  
Harry found it strangely unsettling that this, the boy who had so been afraid of slipping into the shadows of Harry's supposed greatness, was now pushing Harry into those same shadows with all his freckle-faced might.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Slytherin common room tucked deep within the dungeons of the school were bustling with energy and excited chatter as Draco came through the sliding wall.  
  
By the fire, the younger, naïve first- and second-years crowded around something, a book, perhaps, of dark and evil spells. Pansy Parkinson, fanned by the lustful compliments and flirtations of boys from every level (and several of the girls, as well), lay on a long, low leather couch to one side of the fire, her face lit up by a green crystal chandelier and a slow, seductive smile. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw Draco enter, his leather tucked safely underneath the stairs at the end of the hall.  
  
He slipped into an armchair on the fringe of her following, none of whom noticed his entrance but for a slender figure in the shadows. This figure emerged in silence, coming to the arm of Draco's chair and leaning on it gracefully, the curve of his back level with Draco's pale eyes.  
  
"Where have you been? They've been asking for you all evening," said the figure, stroking the long, loose strands of his curling red hair away from his face.  
  
"Who has?"  
  
The figure grinned a perfect, shining white smile. "Why, everyone, darling."  
  
This was the elusive Blaise Zabini, the son of a wealthy banker in London and perhaps the heir to one of the most coveted fortune in all of wizarding Britain, second only, of course, to the heir of the Malfoy galleons, Draco himself. Blaise was also the beautiful youth Draco's father had hoped he would choose at his annual party, that boy with dazzling violet eyes and a flawlessly contemptuous look below a perfect brow.  
  
Draco scowled, sinking further into the dimpled leather of the armchair. The figure did not leave, in fact leaning closer on the wide arm of the chair. Draco glared up at him. "Bugger off, would you? I'm trying to fume in peace, thank you."  
  
"Ah, but it's never that simple, is it?" asked the figure with a lingering sigh. He draped himself with a curving feline posture across the back of the chair now, a tiny, pretty pout gracing his delicate features. "Don't you want to play?"  
  
"Not especially," replied Draco, a note of forced disgust present in his silken voice.  
  
Draco naturally lusted after things of great beauty, and Blaise was most inarguably one of these things; however, Draco also had one general rule which he followed closely at all costs: do always the opposite of that which Lucius wants of you. Sleeping with the Zabini boy - as much as Draco wanted it for himself - would only please his father too much.  
  
He looked at Blaise, one of whose eyebrows was cocked coquettishly, a smirk snaking its way over his petal lips. Draco felt his lip curl, but did nothing to stop it.  
  
"I've got business to attend to," he said, and he pushed himself from the chair, sweeping out of the common room to no predetermined destination.  
  
  
  
Dressed in his tough dragon hide leather, Draco found himself standing high on the ramparts overlooking the lake, which sparkled and danced in the silver daggers of moonlight. It was all very beautiful, the tiny crests lapping solemnly against the sands of the shore, the rippling Slytherin green and silver in the wind-kissed grass, the silvery leaves on the skeletal branches in the forest to the east, there, and even the swirling eddies of clouds touching the rising disc of moon at the edge of the horizon.  
  
One of his feet, encased in the thick, hot, powerful leather of his boots, was pushed up against the parapet, and against the crooked knee of this leg, he leaned with his elbow, the slender angle of which was dressed in the gleaming silver-studded dragon hide. His long, thin fingers were shrouded by heavy silver rings, and the wind tossed his usually sleek hair wildly, whipping the sharp strands into his eyes and the soft flesh of his ears.  
  
He felt powerful out here; he felt raw, untapped. There was no limit to what he was, to what he could be become. He was a live wire, ready to snap at any moment.  
  
When he closed his eyes, he was no longer the skinny seventeen year old boy he was at home or at school. He was tall, broad muscle and sinew strapped in by soft, dark skin, dark eyes peering out from a brooding and shadowed brow, topped off with long, soft black hair trailing carefully down the sturdy ridge of his spine. He was a hero out here. He was a god. And he was beautiful like he never was at home.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------* Mad props to those who have reviewed so far (the pitiful few that it is - and I love you all for waiting so patiently for such a short chapter), but perhaps a few more of you might, ah, contribute? 


	4. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------  
  
IV., in which Colin wakes up, Muggle Studies holds its first lesson, and the new DADA professor reveals himself in a quite unorthidox way.  
  
When he woke in the morning, his first thoughts were of Harry. He lay for several long, drowsy moments in his bed, surrounded by the yards upon yards of aging red velvet and moth-eaten gold satin of the curtains on his bed, wondering if Harry, too, was just waking to the thick, honey-yellow sunlight of mid-morning.  
  
Or if, perhaps, Harry had long since climbed down from the tall four-poster in his own seventh-year dormitory room, stretched his slender arms out behind him with a great yawn before slipping in and out of the moldering old showers in the Gryffindor boys' bathrooms; tossed on a pair of his old grass-stained Quidditch corduroys and the matching blood-red sweater with its pinstripe of gold across his chest, throwing his broomstick over one shoulder (quite dashingly, of course, not bothering with the smudges on his glasses or the dishevelment of his hair); dashing onto the pitch just as dawn broke over the trees, all of which were aflame in their autumn glory; that same messy, moppish hair rippling brilliantly in the breeze which also stained his pale cheeks rosy pink, and made him squint as he searched for the tiny, fluttering Snitch he had loosed moments earlier for a bit of light practice.  
  
Or if Harry was still in bed, sleeping, glasses sitting were he had carefully placed them the night before, on the edge of his bedside table; his eyelashes a harsh line of spider-leg stitches on the pristine length of his pallid cheek, his breath hot on the pillow and his fingertips twitching nearby from dreams which made him nervous; his hair would be spread out like the wing of a flying crow against the pure white linen, the shadows lining his face would be innocent and grey, all trapped between the dry, warm skin of Harry and the heavy, dusty fabric of his curtains, which would be drawn closed against the other seventh-years in the dorm, and against his nightmares.  
  
He sighed into his own heavy blood-and-glory curtains, into the shadows lurking in the corners of the canopy and the soft carvings of the tall, round posts above him.  
  
No, Harry was none of these, though surely he was awake and dressed for the day. Harry Potter did not wake up early for Quidditch practice on Saturdays, nor did he laze about in bed. More likely he was probably somewhere in between - enjoying the velveteen warmth of a tatty old armchair and a steaming mug of hot cocoa in the common room, sitting at breakfast in the Great Hall (though, he thought shrewdly, Harry would not be eating, for the nth meal since he arrived at the school), picking through the library shelves under the careful and gleaming eyes of Madam Pince, or visiting old Hagrid out in his tiny stonework hut on the edge of the Dark Forest.  
  
The boy momentarily forgot Harry Potter as he showered, dressed, and combed his soft blond hair. But when he turned to his dresser, on top of which lay his wonderful old camera, whose flash bulb still sparkled and shone in the bright light from the windows as though it had been bought just yesterday, his focus immediately returned to Harry.  
  
Strapping the camera around himself, he tested the lens for a moment, peering through its window in the same adoring and quietly awed fashion which he had during his first year at Hogwarts, when every picture taken had been sent home to his dad, and he snapped off a few pictures of the sixth-year dormitory to get the old thing warmed up.  
  
Today, it seemed, was to be a stalking day for Colin Creevey.  
  
  
  
  
  
Breakfast that morning was an airy and cheerful affair, sausages steaming in their small silver plates, pitchers of pumpkin and orange juices gleaming in the yellow sunlight which poured in through the Great Hall's high, elegant windows, and the sparkling eyes of many grinning youths lighting up the entire room, right to the very rafters.  
  
But for Harry, this was merely another chance for him to be ignored by his peers. He poked at the meager helping on his plate with the gold-plated tines of his fork, his knuckles propping up his pale cheek as he leaned to one side on the table. The conversation around him - centered mostly on Seamus, Neville, and Dean's comparisons of this year's girls at Hogwarts - drifted in and through his ears, and he understood it all, but was barely paying attention. Thoughts formed and disappeared again in his brain, some connected to the chatter surrounding him, some utterly baffling as to their origin.  
  
It was not until Seamus jabbed him harshly in the ribs with the stack of the term's new schedules that Harry was awakened from the quasi-trance he had formerly been under, and he found the slip of paper with his name on it quickly before passing the remaining pile on its way down the long table.  
  
The first class of the term for Harry, starting just after lunch ended, was Transfigurations with the Hufflepuffs, followed by Charms. Because it was the first day of the term, and classes began in the afternoon, everyone only had the two classes that day. But the rest of the week, Harry's lessons were divided into groups of three, one in the morning, two in the afternoon.  
  
He looked at the course titles casually, expecting the usual round of classes. Indeed, he would be taking Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms, and - his least favorite class of them all - Potions. He would also be subject to sitting through History of Magic with Professor Binns, the only ghost on the faculty, up to three times a week, but he was by this time used to the dull nature of each lesson with the specter.  
  
There was, however, one course which came as quite a surprise to Harry. He had been placed in a Muggle Studies class. His mind suddenly came awake. Surely Professor McGonagall knew that he had been raised a Muggle?  
  
Immediately, Harry climbed from the long bench beside the Gryffindor table, and he approached the stern old professor, who was at this time speaking with a trembling first-year girl at the very end of the table.  
  
"Excuse me, Professor?"  
  
"One moment, please, Mr. Potter.... Yes, yes, you're absolutely correct, Miss Price, see me after lunch is through and I'll fix that right away for you. No first year at this school would ever be expected to study Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Divination all at the same time, no." The woman turned to face Harry, and as she did so, her watery old eyes lit up at the sight of him. "Ah, Mr. Potter, it is good to see you again. How were your holidays?"  
  
"They were fine, Professor, but I need to ask you about this - "  
  
Professor McGonagall snatched the paper from his hands, leaning back slightly to catch the words just right in her small glasses. She nodded, glancing back at him. "And what exactly is the problem with this course schedule, Mr. Potter? I see nothing wrong with it."  
  
"Well, it's just that I've been put in a Muggle Studies course, Professor, and I was just curious about it, because I lived with the Dursleys for so long, and - "  
  
"Oh, yes, naturally. You see, Mr. Potter, in reviewing the courses you had previously selected at the end of last term, I realized that you had selected several extremely difficult lessons. I only arranged it so that you would have more free time, less stress and pressure to study instead of, for example, practicing on the Quidditch pitch." Her eyes glittered kindly in the sunlight. "We wouldn't want our star Seeker becoming too unfocused on the Snitch, now would we?"  
  
Harry gaped, his mouth quivering open and closed again in quiet succession.  
  
"Precisely. Having this Muggle Studies course will not only be a much lighter workload for you, but it will also give you a view of your childhood world which you have not previously seen. I believe it will be quite refreshing for you. Now, go on, finish your meal, Mr. Potter," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I shall see you in class later today, hm?" She smiled, adding, "If you really want to consider changing the class, you are perfectly welcome to stop by my office later to choose a different course in its place. Now, if you will be so kind ...?" She turned away, back to another first year with a rather loud question about the sort of homework load he would be expecting with so many classes in his schedule.  
  
Harry, dumbfounded, made his way back to his seat beside Seamus, but he could not lift his fork. Conversation went on around him. Food was passed before him, but his appetite was not stirred by it. Sunlight winked and glared off of chalices and pitchers all around him, but he did not notice.  
  
Suddenly it had become quite clear to him that, while they appeared to understand the world in all its confused state and wonders, professors at Hogwarts, like the students, were simply trying their best to do the right thing as the days rolled by. The thought struck him as quite funny, but as he took his place once again beside Seamus at the table, he looked up at the long Head Table, and he realized that every one of the adults seated there was fallible. With, of course, the exception of Snape, Harry felt his affection for the crumbling school and its entire population swell slightly.  
  
With an odd little smile on his thin face, he managed to finish a piece of toast spread with marmalade, more breakfast than he had eaten for most of the summer.  
  
  
  
  
  
When Draco arrived at the door of his first class of the term, he found clipped neatly to the door with a thin length of clear tape, which was curiously made of a very foreign, gleaming material, a note.  
  
We'll be on the lawn next to Greenhouse 5, it read in an odd sort of black ink, Do come out and join us. It was signed one Professor Trimble, and Draco raised a pallid eyebrow skeptically.  
  
Most professors at Hogwarts were elderly and quite cross, or of middling years, stern, and embittered by the flippant nature of their students. To leave an entire class of students - especially students of varying ages, from the tiny third-years to Draco himself, in his seventh - was unfathomable. Draco assessed that the professor must have been new this year, or he was quite unpredictable indeed.  
  
And his handwriting, all of those squat, curling letters, implied that he was relatively relaxed and possibly quite creative. Draco smiled to himself; perhaps this class was to be slightly simpler than he had been anticipating.  
  
He carried himself haughtily on down to the lawn, a gently sloping cloak of verdant green hovering just slightly over the lawn. His robes rippled out behind him; his hair was tossed in a teasing bray of wind, and he hesitated for just a moment as he watched the small figure of the professor hopping about excitedly as he spoke with two of the smaller students.  
  
Most of the class, Draco assumed, had already assembled on the lawn; many girls were sitting on the gentle incline which lead up to the fenced-in greenhouses above, their legs pulled in close to them as they watched the boys stand in a broken circle. Draco approached, casually joining the assembly from behind. He stood away from the rest, by himself, studying his classmates' faces. He was the only seventh-year.  
  
"Ah," said the professor, his keen eyes landing on Draco, "good of you to make it, Mr. Malfoy." Draco, slightly taken aback, masked his surprise as an expression of quiet indignation. "Please, join our little circle. Girls," he added in a good-natured shout, "Oi, yes, you - please stand with us. I have something to show you."  
  
The professor was a small, spindly young gentleman with a shock of blond hair which strongly reminded Draco of a vain Defense Against the Dark Arts professor five years removed from the school. He was not wearing the dull, straight-cut robes of his colleague professors, no; he was dressed in completely Muggle fashion. The sleeves of his dress shirt, pale yellow, were rolled to his elbows, and his trousers were creased neatly down the front and hemmed with inch-wide cuffs at his ankles. There were ink pens in his pocket - Muggle ink pens, ball-point and inexpensive, not the shining fountain pens which had become so popular among adult wizards in London - and a shining silver wristwatch dangling on his wrist. His shoes were leather, brown, and tied with odd little brown strings, strings which had at either end a small cuff of a glinting material.  
  
He produced from the scuffed duffel bag at his feet one perfectly round, white ball. The seams of the ball formed dozens of the small, geometric shape which Draco could not name, despite his desperate internal struggle to remember such trivial information. His father had taught him what shape that was, with its eight perfect sides and gaping angles.  
  
"This," the professor said, holding up the ball with one of his wide, flat hands, "is a football."  
  
One of the smallest students, a boy Draco would have placed in Ravenclaw or even Slytherin, crinkled his little nose and said loudly, "Well, what does it do?"  
  
The professor looked around at the students, his small blue eyes twinkling sharply as he absorbed their blank, confused expressions. Draco, standing alone on the outskirts of the little group, jammed his hands into the pockets of his robes and smirked.  
  
"Oh, Mr. Malfoy," said the professor lightly, the football now resting between his thin waist and his wrist, which hung lazily by his side. "Come and help me demonstrate exactly how this little puppy works, would you please?"  
  
"But professor," objected Draco somewhat stiffly, "I am no professional football player. I don't even know what it is, how to play, the rules of the game. There's got to be someone here who even remotely knows the rules?"  
  
The small man considered this, looking around the class. He shrugged, the lights of his eyes finding again Draco's face. "Nope, I think I would rather see you up here, kicking the ball around with me. I'll explain as we go." Draco did not move; the man's jovial expression hardened. "Mr. Malfoy, perhaps I was not making myself very clear to you. Perhaps your Head of House would be able to explain if better, were I to speak with him? Please, join me in front of the class."  
  
Several of the girls tittered; several of the boys chuckled, rubbing elbows with a knowing glance between them. Draco ignored them all as he strode through the class, who backed aside to create a path for him as he did.  
  
Professor Trimble grinned at him as Draco took his position across from the small man, and he dropped the football in between them. It rolled toward Draco, stopping several feet in front of him.  
  
"Now, Mr. Malfoy, I want you," said Trimble, "to kick that ball to me as hard as you can."  
  
  
  
  
  
The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom had been moved around the castle as often as the wizard teaching the class had changed, and this year was no exception. This year, it was a large room in one of the main corridors of the school. One entire wall of the room was a bank of windows, etched with tiny designs and decorative runes. There were delicately embroidered tapestries of blue, silver, red, and green on the solid walls, and the floors were made of a darkly stained wood panel.  
  
Desks were arranged in long rows facing a low desk in front of the grand bank of windows, and this table was empty save several stacks of textbooks, the register parchment, and a simple quill.  
  
Harry arrived with a gaggle of Gryffindors, who sat to one side. Harry sat in the opposite corner. The place on their schedule which should have listed the professor's name had been left blank, and the students who were gathered in the brightly lit room were already whispering their guesses as to whom the Headmaster had brought in this year. The Gryffindors Harry had come in with joined the conversation eagerly; Harry, however, remained silent.  
  
The time came when the room had, for the most part, filled, and the lesson should have been started. But still, there was no professor. The students continued to gossip amongst themselves, but Harry stared out the window.  
  
It was a glorious day; he wanted so much to be on his broomstick, soaring with a small flock of sparrows ducking and weaving on the breeze. Clouds wisped by in jolly pairs, and the grass rippled on the lawn below.  
  
He brought himself back inside. Wishing he were outside would only make the lesson feel longer - if the professor ever appeared, Harry thought distantly.  
  
Admiring the light room, Harry dropped his gaze to a corner filmed in shadow; he smiled suddenly, for there, lying peacefully with his heavy head resting on his paws, was a shaggy black dog. The creature's hazy blue eyes watched the class serenely, and when he noticed Harry's smile, he lifted his head. A large, pink tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he sat up with a very canine grin.  
  
The dog got to his large paws, and without his claws so much as clicking on the cold stone floor, padded to the front of the classroom to stand beside the large desk situated there. In the slanting blocks of clean white sunshine, the animal's fur gleamed, his teeth glinted. With a mischievous look at Harry, the dog vanished, leaving in his place a tall, roguish man.  
  
For a moment, no one noticed, and then - "Oh, oh - !"  
  
The room fell into a low, mumbling whisper of surprise, dropping off into silence moments later. Thirty-seven pairs of eyes were focused in on the man at the front of the room - the newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Sirius Black.  
  
Though Black had been cleared of the murder of James and Lily Potter, and though he had been deemed fit to re-enter the wizarding community after staying in Azkaban for well over a decade, many were made nervous by the thought of the man. It is always difficult, after all, to erase fifteen years' convictions that Black was indeed a murderer and in league with the Dark Lord.  
  
But those who were squeamish did not show it; in the front row of desks, Ron and Hermione smiled knowingly to one another, and across the room, Harry admired the devil-may-care expression in his godfather's eyes. Behind him, Harry could hear the Hufflepuffs quivering in their chairs; the Ravenclaws breathing softly, awe-struck with wonder; and the Slytherins smirking shamelessly, passing looks in between them which said quite plainly, I'm not afraid.  
  
"My dear seventh years," Black began, "welcome to the best days you'll have ever spent at Hogwarts. The people you choose to spend time with now quite realistically may be those with whom you spend most of the rest of your lives - at work, at home, at play."  
  
He was a burly man, his tall frame having filled out since his release from a fugitive life. His robes were simple, black, and clean, edged with blue and white; there was a shadow of stubble gracing his square jaw and chin, and his hair fell in thick waves over his forehead.  
  
Every word he spoke was clear, and the students clung to every syllable he uttered, yet his tone was gruff and round and slightly hollow to hear.  
  
"My name is Professor Black, and I will be teaching you to defend yourselves against the Dark Arts," he said kindly, his hands clasped behind his back. Harry assumed he was holding his wand there, and would soon show them something impressive. "I understand that you have been without much direction in this area, between professors hosting the Dark Lord beneath their turbans, air-headed egoists with no real knowledge, and imposters pretending to be highly excitable aurors."  
  
He smiled in spite of himself; several Ravenclaws and Hermione chuckled at his words. The Slytherins' haughty, stubborn expressions echoed through the room: I'm not afraid.  
  
"So you've studied the Unforgivables. You've covered most of the creatures you should be worried about - kappa, Dementors, werewolves?"  
  
"Ah, you're forgotten the Cornish pixies, professor," called Seamus Finnegan, who snickered beside Dean Thomas. Neville Longbottom, sitting behind, even managed an honest smile.  
  
Black grinned. "Of course, the pixies, how could I have forgotten? Let's see . . . You've learned several of the myths and legends, naturally, the Chamber of Secrets and such."  
  
"Myth?" interrupted Ron, his cheeks blossoming pink. "Sir, I've seen the Chamber opened. That's no myth, that's the truth."  
  
"Yes, of course, but it was a myth long before you watched it open, Mr. Weasley. In my generation, no one had known for sure that it had existed, and therefore it is still myth to me." He apologized with his eyes. "I'm getting old, I fear."  
  
The professor rounded the desk and sat down upon it, perched with arms crossed and knees far apart. One of the Hufflepuff girls swooned, and Lavender Brown blushed. Black ignored it.  
  
"Now, I don't want to cover anything you've already been over. If I begin to repeat anything, tell me and we'll move on right away." He paused. "I want you to be equipped to truly defend yourself against the Dark Arts, as the name of this class states.  
  
"There are times when you could very well be put in a situation when you will have no time to think over the situation. Your enemy will not want to stop and think before he acts, he will hex you - kill you, even, or mean to - before he stops to notice who you are or what you could possibly want with him.  
  
"You need, therefore, to be prepared to cast a spell first, ask questions later - without harming the opposing party, unless absolutely necessary. It is far better to knock someone out before realizing that he wants nothing of you than to seriously injure or destroy them before realize what you've done. The Ministry does not take mistakes lightly.  
  
"Today, however," concluded the professor, "because it is our first day of many together, I believe I will just take role. After that, I'm sure you would all like to ask me a few questions, and I would be partial to answering them if you're courageous enough."  
  
He took role, quite uneventfully. He made no indication at the sound of Harry's name on the register, and he marked down no one as absent from his lesson.  
  
"Who would like to start us out?" he asked brightly, laying aside the parchment and quill. "I will answer anything you can throw at me, to the best of my knowledge."  
  
There was a pause as the class looked to one another for the courage to ask the questions which were writhing just beneath their lips.  
  
Finally, one Ravenclaw boy called out, "How did you do that?"  
  
"Do what?" There was an indulgent smile on the man's scruffy face and a twinkle in his eye.  
  
"Appear at the front of the room without the rest of us noticing you'd arrived," explained Hermione, rolling her eyes at the boy, though a smile spread over her mouth.  
  
"Oh. Excellent," he said. "One reason is the obvious - we as a society, Muggles and wizards alike, are very much obsessed with themselves. We as individuals are absorbed in our every movement, every word. You did not see me arrive because you were wrapped up in yourselves, preening yourselves in your classmates' eyes."  
  
Mild indignation rippled through the room. Black laughed aloud, the sound rich and deep and ringing off of the glass and stone of the walls.  
  
"No, no, don't worry, and don't be insulted. Every one of us is our only truth. That, in fact, is one of the things I want to work with you on this year - listening to the world around you."  
  
He gave the class a moment to settle down, and he said, "Had you been paying attention, you would have noticed a large animal in the room." His eyes stared at the back wall of the room, his brow furrowing, and heads turned quickly - when every head in the room was turned save for Harry's, Black transfigured himself into the dog with whom Harry had interacted earlier in the hour.  
  
The class' attention returned to the front of the room - where a regal black dog now sat, grinning, on the desk. The students uttered a collective gasp; the dog returned to its human form, fur falling in a light cloud around him, and the man chuckled at their goggling expressions.  
  
"Are you registered with the Ministry?" cried an outraged Slytherin girl, and Black nodded, his hair flopping forward and back again.  
  
"I am now, yes. Before I was cleared of the murder charges, I was not, and that was how I evaded the Ministry's notice for the years following my escape from Azkaban in your third year. They made me register with them, of course, before I was declared fit to live among you again."  
  
"Are you married?" asked the swooning Hufflepuff girl, and Black frowned.  
  
"Absolutely not," he replied. "I would not marry for all the Galleons in Gringotts."  
  
"Why not?" called the girl beside the Hufflepuff.  
  
"Too restricting." He grinned, and for a moment it was not too difficult for Harry to imagine him a hell-raising seventh year, marauding with his dad and Professor Lupin. "But I am seeing someone, if it's all the same to you."  
  
The girls fluttered and moaned in their disappointment; the professor glanced at the gold wristwatch glinting beneath the cuff of his robes, and sighed.  
  
"Well, there is not much time left, I'm afraid, in today's lesson. I've gone and talked entirely too long, but I'm sure you don't mind." He looked around the room, face to face, and grabbed a book from atop the desk.  
  
Skimming through the first few pages, he added, "For next time, I would like you all to read the introduction in your textbooks, please, and be ready for a discussion over the material then. It would behoove you also to look over the first chapter - though it isn't necessary for you to participate next time.  
  
"Congratulations," he said in a rapid afterthought, "on being my first class at Hogwarts. I suppose, then, if there are no more questions from you -" he looked around the room, and saw no one - "you free to go."  
  
The students, discussing the lesson amongst them, gathered their books and began to file out of the room. Harry followed at a much slower pace, and as he was joining the column of seventh years making their way toward the door at the rear of the room, the professor called after him.  
  
"Ah, Mr. Potter, if I may have a word?"  
  
Harry turned, catching the somber note in his godfather's familiar voice, and began the walk toward the front of the room once more. "Yes, Professor."  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------* May I mention, Morghaine, that whenever I read your reviews, I gurgle and find myself in an entirely too giddy sort of mood? You would think that finding a brilliant piece of work would make you the happiest child on earth, but finding one of your reviews is even better, believe me. I need some way to reward reviewers - if anyone has an idea, do share! I feel I need to give back to the masses in some way. :D 


	5. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------  
  
V., in which the Headmaster receives a bit of bad news, Draco hunts a first- year, and Sirius Black is visited by an unexpected house-guest.  
  
An owl, tawny and light, fluttered at the window, its golden talons tapping impatiently at the diamond-shaped panes of glass. Its eyes gleamed like drops of amber in the light from the clear sun as well as the dancing candles within the room, and its long wings rustled loudly as it tread the light breeze. A letter was tied to its foot with twine, and it began its tap-tap, rustle, flap again with more ardor.  
  
"Yes, yes, I see you," came the soft, whispering reprimand from the Headmaster as he set his tea cup delicately into its saucer. Gathering his robes closer to his frail body, he made his way around the many piles of dusty books and the like, at last touching the window's ancient latch. The window sprung open, and the owl launched itself into the room.  
  
Roosting on the high back of a chair, the bird stuck out its foot impatiently toward the old man. He untied the envelope, placing a slice of cake onto a plate and setting it upon the desk before the owl, which promptly began to tear the dessert to crumbling bits with its sharp beak.  
  
It was a letter written in a scribbling, lopsided scrawl, the name Cornelius D. Fudge signed hastily along the bottom of the page in bleeding black ink. The Headmaster read the letter, the amused gleam in his eye fading as he did, and his expression fell to a heavy frown by the time he had finished.  
  
He read it through again, and said, "Oh, dear."  
  
  
  
  
  
Lunch was a somber affair for Harry.  
  
Soups and salads littered the tables in their gilded bowls; forks and spoons winked and glittered in the light from above. Water in crystal glasses quivered and sang, the light bouncing around inside as a dove might flit to and fro in the confines of such an elaborately decorated cage.  
  
Behind him, a Hufflepuff girl gushed stories and inane details of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and his roguish wink and grin; beside him, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil took turns oozing a list of reasons why Professor Black was the best thing to ever have happened to the school. That tiny Ravenclaw boy discussed theories of Animagus trickery with his classmates and friends, his head bobbing with enthusiasm as each new idea spilled forth.  
  
But Harry merely stared down into his soup bowl, dipping the round of his spoon through the broth. He made several feeble attempts to actually consume a bit of potato or to spear a tender piece of meat; but his godfather's words from their conversation after class rang through his head, and he dropped his hand to the table once more, the spoon unused still.  
  
Sirius had referred to his new position at Hogwarts as a "pleasant surprise," grinning in that charming way which had enthralled Harry's peers, giving full credit to the Headmaster for keeping it a secret from Harry. It was a late notice, for the professor Dumbledore had originally asked was summoned by the Ministry and had apologized profusely. When Sirius had agreed, the wizened old wizard had spoken with him about the charm of keeping it from the boy, and Sirius had obliged him in that.  
  
Harry was quickly learning this year that adults were much less reliable than he had ever expected, and he wished that he did not have that knowledge. His entire childhood had turned out to be naught but a lie when Hagrid had arrived on his eleventh birthday, and secrets just as great had been uncovered nearly every year after. With all his life falling in around his ears at this point in is young life, the last thing he needed was another trusted adult trying to give him a fairy-tale view of the crumbling world which continued to spin around him.  
  
  
  
Draco contemplated the situation from afar. Leaned casually against a sunlit wall, he watched a small cluster of first-year Ravenclaw boys in the courtyard beyond, unabashedly staring at one in particular.  
  
The object of his attentions was easily the smallest of the group, a tiny boy of pale complexion whose placid expression regarded the others with a mere subtle smile and perhaps an indulgent laugh. His hair was ruffled slightly by an oven-breath breeze, his robes fitting perfectly as one born into a wealthy family. Draco himself had been one of few students during his first year whose robes had fit him adequately; even among the most prestigious families, parents were reluctant to purchase new robes at the start of every term.  
  
This was the boy who had piqued Draco's interest at King's Cross at the beginning of the school year, that gilded youth with gold and copper spun through his long fringe of hair. His eyes, still wide and brown and shining brightly in the sunlight, had lost the fearful stare which had first tickled Draco's fancy at the train station.  
  
A professor came through the courtyard, harried and hassled, shooing students from their perches in and around the walls. The cluster of first- years dispersed, save for Draco's, who was left scuffling through his papers in a frantic effort to collect them. He was soon left very much alone.  
  
Passing through the decorative archways, Draco slunk over the still-damp grass of the courtyard, watching as the small boy pushed papers haphazardly into an expensive-looking leather packet. The boy did not look up on Draco's approach; he did, however, seem to notice the seventh-year's arrival.  
  
Draco paused just before him, holding his fingers to the papers on the bench. "Either you haven't heard me come up," he said softly, raising a pale eyebrow with amusement shining through his glassy eyes, "or you've chosen to ignore me completely."  
  
The boy's dark eyes trailed slowly up the length of Draco's long arm, eyebrows raised with the fearful expression bleeding back into his features.  
  
"Either way, dear child, we need to talk." Smiling winningly, Draco trailed a hand down the boy's yet-rounded and youthful cheek, causing the child to blush pink through his face. Draco smiled genuinely at this, and he clasped the boy's shoulder as he leaned close, introducing himself with much charm and charisma.  
  
  
  
Professor McGonagall, while sorting through papers from her third-year Hufflepuffs, peered over her spectacles at the man seated before her, her mouth set in a grim, tight line.  
  
"Oh, Albus, I just cannot imagine such a thing happening," she said for what must have been the third time, shaking her head. She set aside the paper she had been grading, her quill rolling away from her on the desk.  
  
They had been speaking for quite some time; Professor McGonagall had been spending her free hour grading papers when the older gentleman had joined her, inviting himself to sit down in one of her plush armchairs. He had conjured himself a pot of tea and two teacups, offering one to the woman professor, before briskly telling her about a letter he had received that morning.  
  
Presently, Albus nodded serenely, stirring his tea absently. "Yes, yes, Professor, I know fully well that it is difficult to understand. However, I also realize that it must be accepted as truth, and I will look for what is best to be done about it. It is - "  
  
But he stopped, as the woman professor was staring pointedly at the doorway behind the Headmaster's seat, and Albus turned to see who was there.  
  
"Oh," he said brightly, setting down his spoon. "Harry. How pleasant to see you." His eyes twinkled merrily.  
  
"Hullo, Headmaster." Harry stood awkwardly at the doorway, books hanging loosely at his side. The robes on his back seemed strange and loose and ill- fit, his wrists drowning in the loose fabrics of his sleeves.  
  
"Do come in," Professor McGonagall said in a clipped tone, rising to her feet. But Albus bade her stay seated, and she returned to her chair shortly.  
  
"Why have you come, Harry?" asked the Headmaster, and he placed his teacup on the desk. "Though it is likely not my business to ask."  
  
"Mr. Potter," agreed the woman, gesturing to the empty chair beside that in which Dumbledore sat, "do join us. To what do I owe this visit? Have you complaints against any of our favorite blond Slytherins already this term?" She meant it as a joke, but her smile did not quite reach her eyes.  
  
"Ah, no, Professor." Harry took a seat beside Dumbledore, his books stacked neatly on his lap. "Actually, I came to ask . . . that is, you said that I should ask you about changing this Muggle Studies course for something else, and . . ." He trailed off, his eyes falling to some undetermined spot on the front of the professor's desk.  
  
"Muggle Studies," said the Headmaster brightly. "Muggle Studies, you say? I remember that class. One of the best I'd ever taken." He again took up his teacup, stirring the now tepid liquid thoughtfully. "Why, I believe you'd quite enjoy a Muggle Studies course, Harry." He raised his eyebrows, eyes twinkling knowingly. "You might learn several things you never realized you had not yet learned in a course like Muggle Studies."  
  
Professor McGonagall regarded the wizened old wizard sternly as he absorbed himself in his tea, sighing softly to herself before looking to Harry with a small smile.  
  
"Now, Mr. Potter, if you truly wish to drop the class, I will be happy to help you in that endeavor. You have, I trust, considered all I have told you, and now what Professor Dumbledore has mentioned." She straightened her papers slightly, remembering that they were there on her desk. "Which course were you planning to replace Muggle Studies with?"  
  
Harry hesitated, glancing first at the Headmaster and then down at the schedule opened on his lap. "Actually . . . on second thought . . ." Professor McGonagall raised a thin eyebrow, leaning forward in anticipation. Harry looked up at her, shrinking back slightly. "May I keep the course, Professor?"  
  
"Of course," replied McGonagall, surprised. She covered it well.  
  
"Excellent, Harry, excellent. Well done." The Headmaster smiled triumphantly, and he rose to his feet. "Professor, I shall see you at a later point in time." He waved a hand, flashing a short smile, and winked at Harry as he passed out of the office.  
  
"Now, Mr. Potter, if that is all," said the professor left in the room, "please, feel free to go on to your next class. I understand that you have already missed the first lesson of your Muggle Studies, but that does not exclude you from attending your other courses in the day. Good day, Mr. Potter."  
  
  
  
When Neville Longbottom returned to the Gryffindor common room after his Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, he discovered that he had once again misplaced his toad. That morning, he was sure, he had left Trevor on the cushion of the amphibian's favorite chair in a corner of the room, a bowl of water on the floor beside the chair. Neville knew that Trevor often enjoyed a small bath in the morning, but he had slept late this morning and had not had the time.  
  
Now, the common room was quite empty of one mottle brown-and-green toad with a torn web between the second and third toe on his left hind foot, and Neville had begun to worry slightly. Though Trevor had been known to disappear from sight at times, he was often to be found in the same three or four places every time.  
  
The round-faced boy had checked these places, two times since his lesson had ended, but there was still no sign of Trevor. He slumped dejectedly against the cushion of Trevor's favorite chair, sighing to himself as he struggled to think of another place his pet could be hiding.  
  
"Neville?"  
  
The boy turned 'round slowly.  
  
It was Ginny Weasley, her second-hand robes clean and pressed, fitting her more tightly this year than in the past. Her carrot-colored hair was brushed off of her freckled face with a plain black band, and her nose crinkled as she smiled at Neville.  
  
"I've found your toad," she said brightly, offering her hands toward him. There, cupped in her small palms, was Trevor, his eyes staring blankly as he croaked once.  
  
"Trevor!" he cried. Scooping the toad from her hands, he nuzzled the thing's dry head with his cheek before looking up at Ginny. "Thanks. I've been looking all over for him."  
  
"I know it," she replied sweetly. "Dennis Creevey has been asking us all if we'd seen him - but none of us had. ''Til I came and nearly squashed him under my books, that is. He'd gone and hid in the girls' dormitory!"  
  
"But Parvati Patil said - " Neville flushed pink and stopped. "What I mean is, again?"  
  
Ginny giggled, tucking a small strand of hair behind one ear. "Are you going to supper, then, now that you've recovered your toad?"  
  
"Yeah, I just have to take him upstairs. . . ." He stooped to gather the bowl from the floor. Someone, sometime in the day, had kicked into it in walking by, and there was water spilled on the floor around it. "Oh, damn them. That's what's startled him to begin with, is people not looking where they're sitting and nearly kill him, knocking down his water and trying to squash him flat with their textbooks." He smiled at his own joke.  
  
Ginny clucked her tongue, amused, and said, "That's easily cleaned, Mr. Longbottom. But your language! Tsk. How ungentlemanly of you to speak in such a manner around a lady."  
  
"My apologies, your majesty."  
  
"Forgiven." She helped him back to his feet; the hems of his robes were damp from his leaning them into the puddle of Trevor's water, but she did not notice. "That is, if you walk me down to supper now."  
  
Neville Longbottom turned pink down to the very roots of his hair, but gladly followed her to the Great Hall, while Trevor remained, forgotten, in the common room.  
  
  
  
The apartment of rooms given to Sirius Black by the Headmaster was much more large and lavish than the new professor had imagined they would be. As a student at Hogwarts, he had envisioned each professor as having one very small, very cramped, very Spartan room with perhaps a bathroom attached at one end. His picture included little furniture and certainly no paintings or rugs to cover the bare walls and cold floors, a small and plain bed, with a small window somewhere near the low, drippy ceiling.  
  
But his reality was much different. The apartment was situated on the third floor, very near to his classroom and office. A pair of heavy double doors with a simple lock opened to a high-ceilinged front room, which had hooks lining one wall for possible visitors' cloaks. This small room opened to a larger sitting room, which had several large windows around which someone had thoughtfully placed several low, plush armchairs. The adjacent wall was covered from floor to ceiling with bookshelves, all of which were simply dripping with books of all sorts.  
  
From the sitting room, one could go either right, which lead to a small kitchenette with stove, icebox, and cupboards stocked with foods of all sorts, or left, which lead to the bedchambers.  
  
The main bedroom was quite large, the largest of the rooms in the apartment, and in it was a four-poster much more large and grand than those in the Gryffindor dormitories. The bed was hung with thick, black velvet curtains and draped in pale blue gauze for decoration, and next to it was a small table, the wood of which matched that of the bed's massive frame. There were more bookshelves here, and a full-length mirror. The frame of this mirror was made of the same dark, expensive-looking wood as the bed, and it was carved with many tiny runes.  
  
Windows banked one wall, and these were also draped in the same black velvet and blue gauze, though upon his arrival these curtains had been drawn back to reveal a view of a private courtyard. A small balcony lay outside these windows, and over the balcony's decorative wrought-iron railing grew long fingers of a vine Sirius did not immediately recognize.  
  
The bathrooms were through another door in the bedroom, and these were easily the largest bathrooms Sirius had ever seen. The bathtub alone was as big as the bed itself, and there were large, warm towels lying on a low bench beside it. There were more curtains in this room, but no windows - Sirius had yet to realize the purpose of these. In the ceiling was carved an elaborate scene, detailed and glorious, depicting a pair of fauns playing in the low-hanging branches of a willow tree on a lake. Sirius would yet lie for many long hours admiring the craft of his bathroom ceiling in the months to come.  
  
But for now, he was content to remain in the warm and happy sitting room of his compartments, enjoying the pages of one of his newly acquired books while sipping a small glass of brandy. As he lounged, fully absorbed in his present text, there was a knock at the heavy doors of the apartment, and he scowled to have to leave the cozy confines of the armchair.  
  
The knock, however, was quite persistent, and eventually he pulled himself to his feet and, leaving the book on the chair, crossed the thick rug underfoot. He pulled the door open easily, though it would have been difficult for a lesser man to have done, and was shocked to find Remus Lupin standing in the corridor outside.  
  
  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------  
  
* Short chapter, yes, I know and apologize. I have been trying to keep adding more, but with the other projects I'm working on (namely college application essays, various contests, and Rhysenn's Alliance Fiction Challenge), it's difficult to stay on task.  
  
Reviews are much appreciated! 


	6. 

VI., in which many unexpected things take place.  
  
While Sirius stood in disbelief of the man standing before him, the visitor smiled shyly, chuckling to himself; before the professor knew what had happened, Remus was pressed up against him, his mouth nibbling eagerly at Sirius' lower lip.  
  
Sirius could feel the wolf in Remus' teeth, and he could feel the claw of Remus' hand as the thinner man clutched at him.  
  
Growling appreciatively, Sirius then pushed the door closed with his foot; it was good to taste and feel his old friend once again.  
  
In less than one week, Draco had wooed the precious first year from King's Cross station, had tasted the sweet innocence of the boy's still-soft skin and moist, pink lips; he had felt the boy's gently rounded belly writhing beneath his touch, and he had fastened his own heated mouth around the child's tender throat.  
  
And Julian - for that was the boy's name, sweet and round on Draco's tongue - had found solace in the strong band of Draco's arms circling his thin shoulders, had slid softly out of his expensive robes and in between Draco's silken sheets; he had tangled his very small hands in the Slytherin's cornsilk hair, and he had clung to Draco with fervor and the delicate sheen of sweat blushing over his brow.  
  
It was during those obscure and pointless free hours of the day that Draco had brought the child to the prefect's dormitory, that one small apartment of two rooms in a long hallway on the second floor with the other prefects. Between his lessons that Draco had whispered sparkling promises into the child's ear, tickled the child's neck with baited breath. On those first few empty, lazy Saturday mornings of the new term that Draco had woken to find the boy curled close to his chest, one small hand clinging to the linens; he had heard the child wake to the sounds of his own tiny whimperings in the night.  
  
Draco had been involved in heated affairs before; he had sneaked through the shifting shadows of the school at night to entertain such trysts in the Astronomy Tower, where no one cared who was groping whom in the tiny, dark corners. And he had also been in Julien's place, the younger party, the child clinging blindly to a godly seventh year. He understood the insecurities and loss of innocence the boy was going through during their time together.  
  
But never had he felt so betrayed by any boy's youngish tendencies, the early bedtimes, the long nightmarish clinging, the steady whimpering in the chiding starlight. Never had he longed for the freedom of his own bed whilst another vibrant young body lay steaming beside him. Never had he wanted so badly to be out of it all, and it startled him.  
  
High above the manicured Quidditch pitch, Harry sighed, slouching on his broom, a shining Aura 3500 given to him by Sirius as a birthday present. It was slender and gleaming in the sunlight, a brightly polished ash handle sloping gently upwards to the end where, in glittering silver, its name was printed. The tail was a pretty thing, too, tapered cherry wood twigs charmed to outlast any attacks made upon them.  
  
This year the Gryffindor house team was looking for one chaser and one beater to replace the seventh-year players from the previous year. Professor McGonagall, with Madam Hooch, had just walked onto the pitch below, ready to begin calling numbers and watching the potential new players try out. Many would be decent, Harry knew this for a fact; they probably played with siblings over holidays, watched Quidditch cups both at Hogwarts and elsewhere, or simply had a knack for the sport. There were a few who had no chance of making the team; every year, one of these poor students was Colin Creevey, determined to have a spot beside Harry at every match.  
  
On the bleachers sat a motley crew of other Gryffindors, friends of those trying out, or simply those curious about the new members of the team. Hermione was there, sitting with Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. The three of them made quite a trio, dressed in light sundresses and sandals for the warm autumn weather; their hair was combed and curled, their nails painted, their eyes made up and pretty. They chatted into the breeze, their words gobbled up by the sky.  
  
"Oi, Harry, watch it!" Red and gold Gryffindor robes flashed past, whipping a cool wind around Harry and sending his glasses askew. He scowled; the offender stopped her broom, giggling, and beamed up at him. "Sorry 'bout that, Harry! Pull your head out of the clouds, and maybe next time you'll not get beaned!"  
  
She streaked toward the ground again, her long ponytail of copper-carrot hair flying as a banner behind her. Harry snorted, looking around at his level in the air, where the other players hovered diligently, scattered.  
  
There was Ron, by the near goalposts; he had become one of the team's chasers and team captain in their fifth year. A few feet above him was a small blond boy in his fourth year. He was freckled and wiry, another chaser and most always joking with Ron over this or that. At the other end of the pitch hovered their only returning beater, a fierce-looking sixth- year called Tabitha, with green-black eyes and dark, wild hair. Harry was, of course, still seeker, and keeper was Ginny Weasley, who presently pulled her broom out of a headlong drop just in time to hop nimbly from its seat and stand before the professors with a grin.  
  
Professor McGonagall's voice came over the stadium, echoing grandly among the bleachers, using the Sonorus charm. She held up her hands as she spoke, appearing unfazed by the booming quality of her voice.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen, please form two lines," she said. "If you would like to become beaters, please stand to the left, in front of Madam Hooch. If you, however, would rather be a chaser, stand to the right, in front of team captain Ginny Weasley, if you please. You will each receive a number, and that will be the order in which we will see you perform for us. Thank you."  
  
The booming voice died, leaving the stands ringing from the sounds. The professor removed the spell, and as students began filing into their two lines, she stepped away and gazed up into the sky, her dark eyes searching for something.  
  
At once she cast Sonorus again, and the stadium was filled with the words, "Harry Potter, please come down at once - I would appreciate a word, Mr. Potter."  
  
Harry began his descent amidst laughter from his teammates, landing a few feet in front of the professor, slinging his Aura over one shoulder and running a hand through his thick hair in an attempt to calm the unruly locks. It was a futile attempt, and stray strands still fell over his forehead in disarray.  
  
"Mr. Potter, Professor Black has requested to see you." Harry's eyebrows knitted together, and the professor sighed, nodding. "You know where his chambers are?" The boy shook his head, and she clucked her tongue. "Yes, of course you wouldn't, not this early in the year. Go to the third floor corridor, to his classroom. His apartments are across the hall, third on the right. There is a plaque on the door. You should not be able to miss it easily." She shooed him, and he went, leaving his Aura in the broom shed and charming it with a security spell.  
  
On his way into the castle, he glanced back out at the pitch. Golden sunlight flooded the field and stands, casting long shadows in the late afternoon. The team darted and laughed on the breeze, catching and tossing Quaffles easily for the potential new players, hitting Bludgers back and forth between them. Harry sighed, and just as he turned to walk inside, he caught sight of the Snitch, merely a slight flash of gold above the near set of posts.  
  
Julian came eagerly into the room with Draco, his small hands already reaching, his lips already moist and pink and ready to be kissed. He was wearing his school uniform and plain black robes, while Draco wore just a pair of dark trousers and his white uniform shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow and collar unbuttoned.  
  
Draco stood by the window then, looking out at the Quidditch pitch and its isolated stands sticking poker-straight into the wisping clouds above. The Gryffindors were out there today, recruiting new players. Slytherin's team was full, had been full for three years running; there was a waiting list for their team, and only the best were allowed. Gryffindors were known for allowing players onto their team out of pity. Draco sighed, quietly refusing to look back at the boy behind him.  
  
But the boy came to him with footsteps like snowdrops, each melting silently into the old floorboards as he approached. His dark eyes were wide, his lashes dark and wet. With his small, perfect hands, he began to unfasten the buttons of Draco's plain shirt, blinking slowly as he did. The light from the window washed over him in a golden rain, and he was beautiful for all the innocence lost in him.  
  
Draco brought a hand to stop the child's movement, his long fingers wrapping over Julien's very small palm.  
  
"Don't do that," he whispered, and the child looked up at him with wonder and worry bleeding through his pale features. He removed his hands from Draco's shirtfront, letting a sigh hiccup in his throat. "No, stop that." He lifted Julien's chin with two fingers, feeling slightly sick at the sight of pale, pearly tears forming at the corners of his doe-eyes. "I said, stop that. You're going to make me vomit."  
  
Julian turned his head away, but Draco's fingers remained. The boy moved his hands to clutch Draco's with a quiet desperation, his hair falling over his eyes.  
  
"Now, stop that!" Draco's voice was growing thin, a shrill edge showing through his threadbare tone. "I'm serious. Stop that right now, or I shall - " But he could not go on, not when Julian brought his gaze up to match Draco's in a broken expression.  
  
"You're not going to do anything," said the child softly, but quite firmly. "I know you. I know you're like me, Draco." His eyes narrowed just enough to corrupt his expression. "You know that my father - "  
  
He stopped, shrugged, and dropped Draco's long hand, walking in heavy silence to the other side of the room. Just before the door, he turned, saying, "I know now why you asked me up today. I'm not stupid, Draco." There was a brief pause, during which the boy's stance changed. He appeared taller now, older, lacking that innocent expression which had first drawn Draco to him in the train station that first day.  
  
Draco looked away, out the window. The Gryffindors were drops of red and gold shadow against the pale, late afternoon sky, drifting and falling this way and that on the wind. They were laughing, happy.  
  
He wished he was one of them. Flying. Drifting. Happy. He closed his eyes, murmuring a hopeless prayer in the hollows of his mind that he should be one of them, knowing in his heart that it would not be granted. He knew that there were no gods there to listen.  
  
Instead, Julian spoke, saying in a surprisingly cordial and cold voice, "I shan't come again, if it's what you want." He looked up. "I know it's what you want - for me to never again come near you. It's all right, and I'll survive, if you're worried." He granted Draco an indulgent smile. "You aren't worried. I know."  
  
And he left the room, that small two-room apartment which was the only accommodation a prefect knew, leaving Draco to his wishes of a gently floating breeze over the pitch below.  
  
Harry discovered the apartments of Sirius Black easily, and he knocked, curious over the meaning of this late afternoon visit. There was a scuffling from within, and then the gruff, familiar voice of Sirius calling, "Just a moment - I'll be just a moment."  
  
It was less than a moment before he pulled the door open, beaming brightly at Harry, who stood awkwardly in the corridor. Sirius all but pulled him inside, and Harry stared at the grand nature of the rooms.  
  
"Come in," said Sirius in semi-jest, making a sweeping bow toward the rest of the apartments. "Sit down, or stay standing, if you will. You want something to drink? I've got a few cold Butterbeers in the ice box, or some milk, if you like."  
  
"Uh - butterbeer's fine," said Harry. He was looking out the window, which gave him quite a lovely view of the Gryffindor Tower off to the left, the long spread of hills beyond the castle to the right.  
  
Sirius disappeared through a door to the right, and came back a few minutes later with two frosty bottles in his hands and a bright smile on his lips.  
  
"So this is your room, then?"  
  
Sirius chuckled, popping open his bottle and shrugging nonchalantly. "My rooms, yeah. I'd no idea I would be put up like this, y'know. Thought Dumbledore'd put me in a tiny little place no bigger than that closet under the Dursley's stairs." He shrugged again. "Not that I wouldn't be able to handle anythin' that small, of course. In Azkaban, I - "  
  
Harry shuddered; the godfather stopped, taking a long drought from his bottle.  
  
"So," said Harry lightly, sipping his butterbeer politely. He was not thirsty. "Am I your first official visitor, then?"  
  
Sirius shook his head. "No, Re stopped by earlier, actually, to - "  
  
"Re?"  
  
"Sorry, I guess I forgot. Remus. Professor Lupin to you, I s'pose. If you want to be particular about it."  
  
"Is he here?"  
  
Sirius grinned, shaking his head. "Shouldn't be. Headmaster called him out not five minutes ago, but he wasted no time in getting out of here. Went by floo powder, see."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"No worries, though. He should be back in time for dinner." Sirius glanced at the clock on the mantle of the enormous fireplace along the far wall. "Which is soon. Care to walk an old man down to the Great Hall, then, Harry?"  
  
Harry allowed him a small smile, and nodded downwardly. "Yeah, Sirius. Let's go."  
  
The Great Hall was alight with ribbons of gold sunlight. The light slid through the wide, glassy windows, rushing with an awkward, bubbling splendor through air, glass, and the thin banners fluttering brightly from the ceiling.  
  
There was laughter, there - great gurgling currents of laughter whipping through the entire room. Mercilessly they tickled the youthful faces, eliciting grins and giggles and shy words and dancing phrases.  
  
This was dinner; this was noontime in the castle. This was springtime youth at its best, though that bright light from a robust yellow sun was in all its autumntide glory. This was the joys of childhood playing Marco Polo in a shimmering, abandoned August pond, eating two slices of chocolate cake too many on a candle-wish birthday evening, and prancing gaily through the rain in May's sweet showers. This was the very belly of innocence, round and soft with the gently singing strings of youth itself, and it was the time and place which most took the breath from Harry Potter's swelling lungs.  
  
He came into the room with his godfather, the shape shifter, Sirius. At the head table, the Headmaster appeared elegant and wise and old, draped in soft robes as ancient as the man himself, his beard and gold-framed half- moon glasses glimmering solemnly in the sunlight. Beside him sat the old lady professor, the head of the lion's noble house, looking stern and quiet and kind; her long fingers toyed gently with the silver spoon at her right hand, ready to stir the crowds of students at a moment's notice from the old Headmaster. To his left, a seat stood empty; this was delicately immobile, carved with intricate runes and designs and story-book pictures.  
  
Harry knew who this seat was left open for; this was the place set for Remus J. Lupin, and in its simple, hollow nature, it reflected the professor's personality in its perfect sense and meaning. The golden edges on chalice and plate glowed yellow as Lupin's eyes were prone to do; the blue napkin wreathed in intertwined silver, blue, green, and gold ring spoke softly in testimony of a monthly tragedy ever-present in the man's life thus far; the dark, soft glow of wood backing the sturdy chair behind seemed to ripple, just as once a month the newly sprouted fur ripples in the round-cheese moon smiles sympathetically down upon him.  
  
Sighing into the dusty beauty of it all, Harry bade Sirius a temporary farewell, and took his place at the long, simple bench at the Gryffindor table, second to the right in the high-ceilinged hall.  
  
Immediately, the golden paradise drowned in a clamber of silverware and chatter of many unified voices. Harry was, yet again, tossed blindly into the midst of masses of bumbling children, wandering absently once more in this whirlwind of aimless chit-chat and the offensively careless exchange of words.  
  
Harry arrived late to class, chest heaving beneath each breath as he struggled violently to slow his racing heart. The plastic ends of his shoelaces clacked and clattered on the dusty old floor, his starchly creased pantlegs rustling irritatingly against one another as he pumped his legs, the loose strap of his rapidly wearing bag streaming endlessly out behind him. His hair leapt and fluttered across his forehead and back again, tickling at the corners of his eyes; and his throat constricted and felt dry and papery.  
  
The classroom had been previously unused, tucked away in some foreign corner of the school (as many corners of Hogwarts are prone to be), shut off from the rest of the school like a dusty box of memories squirreled away in a forgotten eve of an attic room. The door creaked behind him as he came, panting, into the room.  
  
Professor Aaron Needleworth Trimble sat perched atop his cluttered desk, skinny legs folded at is narrow ankles, long hands clutching at the hems of his pants. He beamed at Harry as the boy tripped toward him across the front of the room, handing Trimble a small, tightly rolled parchment paper sealed with Professor McGonagall's distinct green wax seal. Trimble tore at it with his thumb, scanned the strict penmanship of the senior professor's note.  
  
He then smiled at Harry, whose attempts to breath at a normal rate were in vain; a trickle of sweet perspiration trickled down is brow. Harry quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of his robes.  
  
"I see. Well, sit down, then, there - in the back, in that empty seat."  
  
Obediently, Harry shifted his books from one arm to the other, looking at the vacant spot of a desk in the very last row of desks, readying himself to sit beside a younger student, one of those pitiful fans (an associate of the Creevey brothers, no doubt), or quite possibly -  
  
The seat sharing the empty spot's desk was occupied by a slender, delicately cut figure who was presently bowed low over a curling scroll, an elegant grey quill moving as an extension of his hand. This was Malfoy; rival and enemy of Harry Potter since the their first year at Hogwarts, spoiled prat son of one of the wizarding world's most esteemed Ministry officials, looking dazzling and brilliant in the watery light of the high windows which graced one wall in the tiny room. He seemed to be carved from ivory and gold, the yellow of his hair gracefully fading into the porcelain, snowy whiteness of his pale, pale flesh. Harry, even from across the room, could see the deep blue veins running under Malfoy's rice-paper skin, a myriad of minute, rushing rivers of well-bred, life-giving blood.  
  
Harry blinked, broke the trance, and looked at Trimble, who was watching him quite expectantly from his perch atop the desk. "I - I'm sorry, sir, but I - I can't sit there."  
  
"And," said Trimble, smiling obligingly at him, his dull teeth cutting a half-moon from his face, "why, exactly, is that, Harry?"  
  
Malfoy looked up, a brief and fleeting assessment of the situation taking place between professor and student; he then became quite absorbed with his work, tying his letters together with a carefully guided sweep of his wrist. He did not look up again.  
  
"Uh, we - I mean - Malfoy and I - don't get on too well, Professor," he stammered softly, watching the probing eyes of the other students in a hesitant, sidelong sort of way. "We never have."  
  
"Oh, I do see, indeed." Trimble's smile broadened compassionately. "I completely understand." The smile thinned out, and a void in Harry's trunk deepened. "You may be seated next to Mr. Malfoy, Harry. Please. I will not ask again."  
  
The void spread rapidly, and Harry was well aware of the heavy, sinking feeling in the very pit of his stomach. He turned and began the long walk down the narrow aisle between desks, his sneakers making a hollow sound on the flagstone floor with each step, his legs strangely numb beneath his swishing black robes.  
  
"Oh, and Mr. Malfoy," called out Trimble, hopping neatly from the desk. "If you please remember the rule I installed in my classroom quite recently?"  
  
Malfoy looked up, startled, and set the fluffy quill away sheepishly, rolling up the bit of parchment before him and tucking it into a pocket. The quill followed, and he looked again at the professor as the man turned to a large green chalkboard to one side of the desk.  
  
"Thank you. If you would all take out your notes from last time, I believe we can get started before Mr. Potter has taken too much of our valuable class time."  
  
He began to write on the board quite rapidly with a bit of plain white chalk, speaking in excited tones as he did.  
  
"Now, as you know, Muggles are quite oblivious to even the most obvious of events in the world, even if they are left out beneath their little, non- magical noses. Look at our records of history, with all the great evils in the world, and then look at theirs. They document our histories as mythology - take a look at Circe in their supposed Classical Mythology. Take a look at all of our documentation of recent evils in the world - there is no mention of it in their world, despite the hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide caused by Death Eaters and the like each year. They really are quite fascinating in their persistent ignorance, aren't they ...?"  
  
Harry had taken his place beside Draco, who moved his chair away from Harry and pulled a spiral-bound notebook from his bag. Harry watched in amazement as Draco also took out a skinny, plastic, ball-point ink pen from the same bag, and began to take notes from the chalkboard as Trimble filled the space rapidly.  
  
It was a moment later that Harry realized that the rest of the class, too, had pulled from their respective bags Muggle ink pens and pads of lined paper. He stared at the board, watching as Trimble danced on his toes nimbly, excitement spewing from his mouth as he lectured and taught.  
  
"You'll need a pen," said Draco, using only the very corner of his mouth. Harry blinked owlishly at him, until the blond huffed out his breath impatiently and flipped over the notebook. From its flimsy metal spiral, he brutishly tore three pages, dropping them onto the desk in front of Harry; he dipped his hand into the bag at his feet, bringing up another ball-point ink pen and dropping that, too, before Harry. "No need to give it back - just find a notebook before Trimble realizes you've not been issued one."  
  
"Thank you," said Harry after a dumbfounded moment, and he began to take down the notes.  
  
It was a long time before Draco turned back to his work, long breaths and reels of thought before his critical pale eyes returned to his own diligent note-taking.  
  
Supper that evening was a splendid affair indeed. The enchanted ceiling cast a cool silver glow over everything, clashing and mingling with the warm yellow and gold tones from the torches and floating candles overhead.  
  
Harry sat among those so-called friends of his, each worrying himself over his own matters while pretending to hear everyone else's, his long fingers toying with the plated gold handle of the fork at his table set.  
  
He glanced up, bored; the Slytherin table was hissing and spreading foul word of those seated at and around their table, each pair of glittering eyes hiding at least a dozen great secrets, all eager to be spilled. The Slytherins held proud, malicious grins on their twisted faces, beautiful and gleaming in the dancing light all around. Harry blinked, suddenly blinded by it all.  
  
Draco was looking back.  
  
Cornsilk hair glimmered with its usual sleek style; pale eyes brooded below a fair brow. Shadows moved and pirouetted over a cream-skin canvas, and the petal-pink lip pulled slightly aside, an elegantly rehearsed sneer, as he regarded the rest of the room.  
  
But Draco was looking back now, the sneer had been put aside for a few precious moments; he continued to look back until Harry glanced away. His dark eyes wanted very much to be watching something which he knew very well, something which would not blind him with its newness and foreign beauty.  
  
He looked instead to his godfather. Sirius sat at the head table, hair tossed carelessly over his strong forehead, his usual broad grin pinned seamlessly in place as he conversed with the weary-looking man beside him.  
  
Professor Lupin. Harry sighed inwardly; the professor looked exactly as he had four years before, those tired and thin curls falling loosely around his pale face, amber eyes taking in his surroundings placidly. Subtle lines and hidden meanings flowed through his changing expressions, those smudged shadows beneath his eyes like twin bruises on either side of his face.  
  
He was terribly handsome, appearing so terribly thin in his dark red velvet robes, leaning nonchalantly against his chair as he hung on every word uttered from Sirius's wide mouth. Sirius himself was dressed in dark blue robes lined with ivory satin, his twinkling eyes never leaving Lupin's delicate expression.  
  
The Headmaster came into the hall, then, his robes swishing and glittering for all the embroidery on them, his spectacles shining as he turned to greet those around him.  
  
Silence fell over the hall as the Headmaster turned to address them, holding up his withered hands in a useless gesture; the chattering students were already watching him with an eager light in their eyes and faces.  
  
"My dear students," he began, "my dear professors, and my dear self." A small, whispering laugh drifted through the students' tables. He smiled faintly, but it was not a long-lasting expression, nor did it truly reach his eyes. As the corners of his mouth fell again, he continued, "I have an announcement which I can no longer put off. It is known by many of you that the Ministry of Magic is in an uproar, due to recent events concerning the entire wizarding world."  
  
Harry looked away from the old man for a moment, glancing around him. The others were nodding to themselves, sharing private whispers of the knowledge they possessed. Harry knew nothing of which the Headmaster spoke, and he felt sheepish that he had allowed himself to drift so far from the rest of the world's matters in the few weeks he had been at Hogwarts.  
  
"For those of you who know not of what I am referring," Dumbledore continued seamlessly, his eyes catching Harry's, "allow me a brief moment of explanation. Two weeks ago, there was a vicious attack on a Muggle family in a small town south of London. Hours later reports of a second attack were brought to the Ministry, followed in the next four days by no less than six more attacks. Every household involved had Muggle-born witches or wizards within their family. The attacks are believed to be the work of Dark Witches or Wizards, but the Ministry has yet to come up with any leads. However, due to the rising concern, widespread panic, and (here I quote directly from the Daily Prophet) 'utter hopelessness' of the situation, the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, has decided - " Dumbledore paused, pursing his lips for a short moment before finishing, "Fudge has decided to renounce his title as Minister of Magic."  
  
A ripple of excited, frightened whispers spread throughout the room, and Harry felt as though someone had dropped a hot coal into the very bottom of his stomach.  
  
The Headmaster held up his hands to quiet them, closing his eyes as he allowed the speculation to die to a mere breeze of a murmur. When he spoke again, his voice was thin and quiet. "It is because of these events that I reluctantly - very reluctantly, and with much grief - have decided to resign from my position at Hogwarts, and I will no longer be your Headmaster."  
  
The Slytherin table hissed and spat with celebration and hopeful suggestions of who might replace the old wizard, but Dumbledore said nothing to quiet them. He merely glanced at them with a pale fire in those light blue eyes, his brow furrowing deeply.  
  
"At the beginning of this week, I was offered the position of Minister of Magic. It is with much consideration and thought that I have agreed to take Fudge's place in the ministry," he said at last. "I will become the Minister of Magic in Britain on Monday, when I am to be sworn in at the London Bureau."  
  
He allowed the students a moment to voice their objections, concerns, and revels at this announcement. Harry remained unfazed by the chatter around him, shocked by the whole ordeal, and he noticed that the professors, too, all held the same aghast expression in their aging eyes. Sirius appeared heartbroken by the Headmaster's startling words.  
  
But Dumbledore was not finished speaking, and again, he held up his old hands to quiet the students. As the murmurings in the hall died out, he took one step back, toward the table, and tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robes.  
  
"I am pleased however to appoint a new Headmaster, as is custom at Hogwarts. In my stead I am leaving a man in whom I place my full trust and confidence. I expect the students to behave as though I were still here, and I pray the same in my heart." He glanced around, and Harry found himself leaning forward in a sick anticipation. "Please step forward, Professor Lupin."  
  
...  
  
* I meant to have this chapter finished a very long time ago; time yet again slipped away from me, and my profs believe that they have top priority. (Because they control my grades and therefore also control my fate, however, I'll play along with their little games.) Also, ff.net has been giving me grief about signing in since, oh, about February. The next chapter (I hope) will not take so very long to be posted. 


	7. 

_A/N: Sadly, I've decided that Once Upon a Saturday__ will be on hiatus for an undetermined length of time, due to Rowling killing_ half my plot, if you catch my drift. I can't promise to continue working on it, and I am surprised to be putting anything on hiatus, as I thought I never would; I can honestly say that I wish she had gotten rid of someone else, almost anyone else. I am severely grieving this loss, which actually surprises me. I had not thought I would care as much about this particular character (though I knew that if she had killed certain people, I would never again be able to write them – Colin, for one, among others, Our Victim included. *snuggles Colin until the boy turns purple*)__

_Meanwhile, I will be using a lot of the material I had developed for this story on a different project, one which actually came to mind this morning as I struggled fruitlessly to wake up. Tempted as I was to post whatever I had written for this, I decided that it would be better to use it for some other use. I have several short stories which I've also been working on, including a fun piece with one of Rowling's best new arrivals, and a reflective Colin piece. _

_Enjoy the chapter, poppets. (I got pretty emotional while reading through this chapter, actually, when I was still contemplating whether or not to post it.) I hope it finds you well._

chapter vii; in which Harry is unexpectedly called to the Headmaster's office, Draco dodges confrontation, and we learn a little about Percy Weasley.

The summons came in the form of a folded piece of parchment sealed with the Hogwarts crest stamped into thick, dripping red wax. At the start of the Transfiguration lesson, Professor McGonagall dropped it onto Harry's cluttered desk with pursed, thinly set lips and hurried to the front of the room, stubbornly refusing to meet his questioning gaze.

Harry ran his thumb under the seal, breaking it with the customary satisfying crack of the hardened wax over his thumbnail. The sprawling handwriting was an immediate comfort; he read it slowly, leisurely, expecting a gentle invitation for tea at the end of the week, as he was accustomed to receiving every now and again from the old Headmaster.

But this note was far from gentle; as the ink scrolled its way down the page, the beautiful calligraphy spelled out a hasty and worried message, summoning Harry to the cluttered office as soon as he could get away. Dumbledore had not even taken the time to sign his name; his raggedly scrawled A.D. stood along at the foot of the letter.

Harry looked up at the professor at the head of the room, and she nodded with compassion and worry in her old eyes. He did not even bother putting together his things in a remotely neat order. Papers and empty parchment scrolls were shoved haphazardly into his bag and the heavy covers of his Transfiguration textbook, his quill between his teeth.

Ron and Hermione glanced up when he left, but had hardly noticed that he had received a note at all. As Harry all but scurried out of the room, they exchanged puzzled, careless shrugs.

Fawkes was at the height of his health, and his gorgeous foliage of orange and gold feathers glowed under the candlelight of the room. His long claws gleamed as he perched on the brass stand beside a window, the dark curtains of which were now drawn tightly closed, like the others in the room. He looked for all the world like some peacock of India painted with fire, from the delicate curve of his skull and long neck to the long, soft plumes of his magnificent tail which trailed down nearly to the floor.

When Harry reached the top of the moving staircase, having used the password enclosed in his note from Dumbledore, the phoenix looked up from his preening. His eyes were dark and glassy, like his talons and his beak; his small head tilted slightly to one side as he peered through the crack of the door at Harry. A soft, cooing purr sighed from Fawke's sleek throat, and Harry allowed himself a small smile.

Voices floated through the crack in the heavy door of the office, and Harry did his best not to eavesdrop on the Headmaster. But soon the conversation within swelled and grew louder, the voices more distinguishable and familiar in Harry's ears.

". . . and, then, is it really all that bad?" Dumbledore's voice asked, airy and old as it always was. "This school will remain standing as it has for much of the long history of wizarding Britain."

"The school does not worry me," replied a second voice. This was rumbling, verging on a growl, desperate and melancholically sweet to hear. Harry stepped closer, not for the words, but for the sound of that voice, so warm and soulful; the unpolished roughness of each syllable uttered by that voice was a warm caress down Harry's spine. The voice of Sirius, it seemed, was to Harry the closest thing to home he had ever experienced.

"What, then, is keeping you in my office every spare moment of your time?" asked the Headmaster. Concern spread through his voice, masked by the ancient timbre and comforting undertone of the voice.

In spite of himself, Harry crept toward the door, stopping where he could see his godfather standing in front of Dumbledore, who himself sat on the edge of one of his dusty old armchairs. 

Sirius sank to his knees shortly, clinging with his calloused hands to the heavy fabric of Dumbledore's robes so much like an infant clinging to the hem of his mother's dress.

"Albus, you're not strong enough," he pleaded brokenly. "Please let someone else, someone younger, to take your place?"

Dumbledore smiled, the utter desperation visibly painful in his wet blue eyes. The flat of his withered old palm he rested gently on the crown of Sirius' head, his fingers petting the smooth strands of the younger man's hair in a show of comfort and soothing. 

"Ah, Sirius," he replied quietly, regretfully, "you are more innocent than even I give you credit for." His old brow furrowed deeply, as though some great battle was playing itself out within his heart. "It would give me great comfort and relief to send someone else – if only it were as easy as that. But I believe you know as well as I that, indeed, I am the one who must go." He paused, patting Sirius' hand on the hem of his robes. "You see, Sirius, the decisions we make in life are not always for our own good, but often for the good of others. How else would the world continue to turn?" 

Dumbledore repeated again, as much for his own comfort as for Sirius', "I must go. No one else."

Harry felt his stomach tighten, and Fawkes cooed sadly from his perch. The boy stepped backwards, his eyes still unable to leave the image of a heartbroken Sirius Black clutching so desperately at the robes of such a frail and delicate man as the old headmaster appeared to be at the moment, with such an aura of ominous distress in his features.

A tear, silver in the dim light which seeped through the drawn curtains, sprang from the corner of Sirius' dark eye, digging a path down his rugged cheek. Dumbledore, murmuring a small prayer to comfort the man, chose this moment to look up, catching Harry's wide-eyed gaze. He beckoned with one gnarled finger for Harry to enter the chamber, and reluctantly the boy obeyed the silent command.

He then turned his attentions back to Sirius, speaking in a tone so low Harry wondered if he was supposed to be able to hear the words passing between the two men. "I promise you my safety, Sirius, and the safety of Harry and of you and of Remus, but I can promise little else at the moment. Stand up; Harry is here, and he needs both of us to act as adults right now."

Sirius got to his feet, wiping hastily at his eyes with one hand. "Harry," he said, smiling through the water in his eyes. "Good of you to make it."

Dumbledore smiled kindly, rising to his feet and patting Sirius on his broad shoulder. "Harry, I have something to tell you, and I hope it will make you more comfortable with the events which are occurring too quickly even for my liking." He paused, but the warmth shining in his eyes did not falter. "Would you like some tea? I've a few biscuits somewhere, as well, if you prefer." 

Harry shook his head. "I would rather get back to class as soon as I can, Professor. No offense," he added quickly, "I just don't want to have to make up work for Professor McGonagall. . . ."

"Yes, of course," said the headmaster. He cleared his throat, sitting down, and he gestured for Harry and Sirius to do the same. Once the three of them were comfortably seated, he continued, "I asked you here today to explain a few things. To make you more secure, I suppose, though this will also sooth my own nerves somewhat." 

His expressed sobered. "Harry, I am quite hesitant to leave this school, what with the Death Eaters' activity of late. It worries me to have to leave you in a place where I cannot get to you quite quickly if I need to. I'm sure you realize by now that we have always had you charmed, that we have cast spells to locate you more easily – " Harry had felt that the adults around him had done something of the sort, but hearing it said aloud, knowing that no one had ever directly told him before, startled and worried him slightly. " – And it is all for your safety, you must rest assured. No matter where you are on these grounds, I have always been able to be by your side within seconds.

"But once I am stationed at the Ministry, it will become more difficult for such precautions to be made, as I'm sure you realize." He paused, studying the boy's face for a moment. "You're wondering why I am telling you all of this. Harry, I understand that this entire situation is either too immense and worrying for you to have realized yet, or you are already more apprehensive than any seventeen-year-old young man should have to be. That is why I asked you here today, Harry; because I will be placing those same sorts of spells on you which have always been placed on you, with the exception that these new spells will tie you directly to both Professor Black and Professor Lupin, both of whom are just as worried as I am. If possible, more so than I. 

"Harry," Dumbledore finished, "I do not mean to alarm you. If there is anything you need, anything which worries or frightens or concerns you, I am just as close as I always have been, merely less often accessible, perhaps. If you wish to express a concern, just speak with your godfather or with Professor Lupin, and they will contact me immediately. Or you may always send an owl, of course. But you've already thought of that."

Harry pinned a smile onto his face, the same smile he used with Ron and Hermione. "Thank you, Professor. It means a lot to me. May I return to my lesson, now? Professor McGonagall will want me back as soon as possible."

"Yes, of course, Harry." He eyed the boy with some suspicion in his pale eyes, and asked, "You're quite alright with this?"

"Yes, Professor." Dumbledore only nodded, skepticism etched in the lines of his face.

He got to his feet and walked toward the door, past the magnificent phoenix, whose head he patted fondly. The bird cooed, sending a warm trill down the length of Harry's spine.

"Oh, Harry," said Sirius softly, as though he had just remembered something very important. His tone was more hollow than ever before, subdued and mellow. "I'm having supper in my apartments with Professor Lupin tonight. Would you like to eat with us, instead of in the Hall with everyone else? It might give you a chance to ask any questions you might think up later in the afternoon."

The smile returned to Harry's face. "Sure."

"Six o'clock, then?" Harry nodded. "As always," Sirius murmured, smiling, though the expression did not reach his eyes. "See you then, Harry."

He left the office feeling no better, no worse than when he had entered. Seeing Sirius in the state he had, in a way, had sobered him – though he felt as though he had been serious since the beginning of time by this point in his life.

Arabella Figg was growing rapidly older, and she was beginning to feel the rust in her bones at long last. 

As a child, she had attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a fifth generation student and the only child in her family. She had no cousins, no other relatives her age. She was the last Figg, and therefore the sole heir to the many riches of an old, respectable pureblood family. Arabella had been lean and strong as a child, always tall for her age, always eager to show her knowledge of dueling charms for sport. 

When she was seventeen, Arabella had gone to work for the Ministry, and they had spent six months training her as an Auror. She had been a revolutionary, one of the first lady Aurors wizarding Britain had ever seen. 

Arabella had witnessed firsthand the fall of Grindewald. 

In the comforting peace that followed, many of her friends and acquaintances speculated that she would settle down and try to produce an heir for her fortunes. They reassured themselves that, though she was older than most brides as she neared thirty, she was quite pretty and a very loving woman; of course she would have no trouble finding a husband.

But Arabella had no intention of settling down. She was eager to see the world, to travel and meet new and exciting people. She wanted to help those with not a Knut to their name, to share what grace she had been given as the child of a wealthy widower in London. 

So she bought a ticket on a high class ocean liner bound for Africa, and she became an assistant nurse in a tiny wizarding hospital on the coast of Madagascar. 

As soon as her missionary impulses subsided, she went to work again for the Ministry. She worked peacefully as an active Auror on duty for many years, until July of 1981.

The tiny village of Godric's Hollow was shocked and appalled at the events which occurred there, of the brutal murders of James and Lily Potter. 

The Potters were a lovely young couple, very handsome, kind, and popular with everyone they met, and both were Unspeakables with the Ministry. They met when they were stationed to work together, Arabella had learned over tea with a fellow Auror, an excitable and enthusiastic woman called Carlotta Plunkstone, who had always felt that the Potters would do great things in their time.

Arabella had only met them once, at a Ministry ball held that Midsummer's Eve, but she had known even then that Carlotta was right when she had prophesied the grand role to which they had been fated.

In the days following Voldemort's heinous acts that perfect evening in late July, rumors churned forth proclaiming the Potter's infant son, Harry, a hero, declaring that the child had brought about the fall of the greatest Dark wizard since Grindewald himself. They said that the child was special, that he was an anomaly and a miracle.

But Arabella Figg did not believe it. How could a baby, just days away from his first birthday, have stopped such a powerful wizard? She did not believe it, nor did she want to. 

It was, of course, much to her surprise that the Ministry had placed her in indirect care of the child, the only witch within a given radius on whom Harry could depend for safety against the magical evils of the world. She lived across the street from the child's horrible Muggle aunt and uncle, his mother's sister and her husband.

Of course certain precautions had been made with her tiny house, so that the Muggles would never see any strange goings on around the woman. Of course she was to be on unfaltering guard at all times, keeping her eyes open for any sort of unusual behavior in the neighborhood around Harry and herself. _Of course_ the Ministry had placed spells over the child and his entire home, on those Muggle relatives of his, to keep them well out of harm's way.

Of course, Arabella had been fascinated with the child from her first meeting him. 

The Dursleys, the aunt and uncle, left Harry with her for weeks at a time when they went on their annual extended holidays in Spain or France. They left Harry with her nearly every weekend when they took their spoilt and disagreeable son on day trips to all sorts of comfortable Muggle places, zoos and museums and shopping centres and cinemas, all sparkling with the shiny glass and metal and plastic that so embittered wizards against Muggles. 

He had been a creative child, though not especially graced with any unusual genius or gifts, and quite eager to see things. He had played with his animal crackers, imagining all sorts of wild adventures for the graham cracker creatures before dunking them into his milk and gnashing them between his teeth; he had always enjoyed their final imagined breath as he swallowed "what was left of them," as he said. 

Until the Muggle world and his wicked cousin had squelched it out of him, Harry had been curious about Arabella and her many funny knick-knacks, her crystal balls and odd herbs on the windowsill and strange-looking jars lined up in the study, their labels dry and curling on the edges. He had crinkled his tiny, round nose at the ancient, dusty smell of cats and the stale cakes she sometimes fed him (she had yet to learn everything about Muggle baking, but showing any hint of real Magic around Harry, she had been warned, could have spelled disaster), but never had Harry Potter refused a nap on her ancient, dusty sofa in the parlor, which smelled of cats and stale cake.

Now the Ministry was expecting terrible things from Voldemort once more, but Arabella was feeling her old age and she could no longer sensibly ignore it. There would be no Auror work available to someone her age, not this time. 

Arabella Figg would just have to sit at home, listening to the news on the Wizarding Wireless, as she never had done before.

The library was forgivingly empty the afternoon on which Draco first tutored Harry for Muggle Studies, as he had been assigned that first day which Harry had been in class.

As Draco had left the Slytherin Commons that day, Blaise had sidled up beside him, eyebrows raised into a fiery red hairline of curls, an innocently curious smile tucking the corners of his mouth and dimpling there. Draco had tried to ignore him; but Blaise simply would not hear of it.

"Where are you going?" he had asked, following the blond boy into the damp dungeon corridor.

Draco had sneered as haughtily as he could manage, replying, "Nowhere. I was hoping to be alone in my travels, but apparently that's too much to ask for in this day and age, isn't it?"

The redhead had all but giggled. "Oh, Draco, you're so witty," he had purred, "and terribly, sinfully handsome."

"Oh, stop it, Zabini, or you'll soon be sounding just like Pansy. I really _must_ be going."

Blaise had then cornered him, trailing a slender fingertip over Draco's forearm. Cold shivers had spread down Draco's spine and into his hairline at the nape of his neck, through his limbs and tingling in his toes and fingertips, traveling throughout all of his veins and nerves and back again, finally centering in his loins. Silently he had cursed himself that such a simple action could cause him to react so.

Draco had nearly cringed outwardly as Blaise had pouted, his lower lip full and pink, his lashes fluttering over eyes made from blue crystal. He had obviously sensed Draco's discomfort, and his pupils had expanded; he had leaned forward and kissed the corner of Draco's perfect mouth.

"Meet me later," he had said, his voice barely above a husky, tempting whisper. His eyelashes had fluttered, and Draco had leaned away.

"I'm not sure I can promise you anything," he had replied coolly. Blaise's expression had flared. "But I will sit with you at supper, alright?" Draco had sighed lightly. "I really must be going."

Blaise had clucked his tongue, rolling his eyes. "Fine. Supper it is. But you owe me," he had added, jabbing a pretty finger at Draco's nose. "And I won't forget – I'm _not Pansy, remember."_

"Yet, anyway," had muttered Draco, turning away quickly.

Draco had abandoned Blaise in the dungeon corridors just as quickly, rushing as gracefully as he could to the library, which was, this afternoon, so mercifully empty.

Harry was sitting at a long, rectangular table at the far end of the library, one of the roughly hewn plank-and-board desks which few students used for its less than aesthetically pleasing appearance; its surface did not gleam like many others in the room. His bag was pushed against one leg of the table at his feet, and he was leaning on his left arm, his hand tangled in his hair as he casually read the first few pages of a textbook. Other books were stacked neatly in the corner of the table, and a thin roll of parchment paper, a bottle of standard black ink, and a nondescript brown quill were lying nearby, waiting to be used.

The desk was pushed up against the gates of the Restricted section of the library, the wall a few feet to its left home to a bank of tall, clear windows. Two large bookcases created a secluded nook for the table, and Harry seemed undisturbed in his studies.

With his bag of books slung over his shoulder, Draco made as if to walk casually up to Harry, to clap him on the back with spiteful cheer and greet him in a mockingly friendly manner, to pull out a book and begin their homework without a thought of anything but schoolwork in mind.

But as Draco walked up, he noticed the glisten of sunlight on the corner of Harry's glasses, a very small part of the larger, thicker beam of sunlight passing through the windows to his left. The same light seemed to ruffle Harry's hair, casting it unkemptly over Harry's pale forehead and the nape of Harry's elegant neck. 

He noticed the soft curve of Harry's bottom lip as it was absently chewed by Harry's smooth, white teeth. He noticed the incredible length of the dark lashes curtaining Harry's eyes, and the way Harry's knee bumped lightly against the bottom of the desktop as he shifted slightly in his seat, and the fact that Harry had draped his robes over the back of the chair, wearing only his dark grey uniform trousers and his white shirt with its thin sleeves rolled up over the solid, round parts of his forearms, his red-and-gold Gryffindor tie hanging loose and untied around his neck.

Draco paused, feeling a very peculiar, almost familiar tug of something in his stomach, the lurch of a sudden gust of realization tickling the bottom of his heart roughly. It all made unfortunate sense to him then, and he wished he did not have to tutor Harry this afternoon, or any afternoon, for that matter.

Percy Weasley had always been the smallest of the Weasley boys. His older brothers, Bill and Charlie, had grown up quickly into tall, muscular men, their freckles no longer a picture of innocent, adorable youth, but a mark of ancestry. They had left Hogwarts knowing exactly what they had wanted to do with their lives; and Bill had left home to work for Gringotts and travel the world, while Charlie had gone on to study the dragons in Romania.

Percy had reached his seventh year at Hogwarts with much pomp and arrogant ceremony. He had proudly displayed his Prefect badges and top-notch O.W.L. marks, basking in the praise his mother bestowed upon him. 

When he turned eighteen the summer after his seventh year, he had returned home to the Burrow, suitcases and trunk in neat order all around him, only to realize that he had not the faintest clue what he wanted to do with his life. And so he had done the only logical thing he could have done at the time; he had gone to the Ministry of Magic in London and had applied for a job there.

It had, of course, been the cowardly thing to have done. He understood that with his high marks and test scores, as well as his father's history with the Ministry, he had been sure to receive an offer. 

When Mr. Crouch, Sr., had died so tragically, Percy had not only been heartbroken, but also overwhelmingly lost and confused. His family had not realized how important to Percy Mr. Crouch truly had been, "Weatherby" or not, and therefore no one gave him the proper comfort.

That spring, Percy moved out of the Burrow. He bought a flat in London, something simple but clean and pretty. He continued to work for the Ministry, directly assisting the man hired to replace Mr. Crouch, but his heart was no longer in his work; he no longer felt pride in what he did. 

He ate simple meals, wore simple robes, and on weekends, he spent his time doing simple things; he shopped for new books, buying only when he had read everything else in his meager library. His life was a never-ending pattern of working, eating, sleeping, and working, on and on. 

Nothing changed. He did not need it to change, and he liked his life the way it was. Simple. Unaltered. Predictable. Boring.

Until, that is, one overcast Saturday in October of his twenty-first year, when Percy Weasley was approached by a pretty girl in Flourish & Blotts.


End file.
